Dr. Rodney Jackson is a leading expert on wild snow leopards and their high-mountain habitat. Snow Leopard Conservancy has grown out of Rodney’s 40 years’ experience gained in working closely with rural herders and farmers whose lives are directly impacted when snow leopards’ prey upon their livestock. Upon receiving a 1981 Rolex Award for Enterprise, Rodney launched a pioneering radio-tracking study of snow leopards in the remote mountains of the Nepalese Himalaya. This four-year study led to the cover story in the June 1986 National Geographic. In addition, the June 2008 issue of National Geographic featured Rodney’s work with the Snow Leopard Conservancy-India Trust. He has been a finalist for the Indianapolis Prize in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2016, and 2018 – the first to be nominated three times consecutively. The Indianapolis Prize is the world’s largest individual monetary award for animal conservation.

Rodney prepared the snow leopard section of the IUCN-World Conservation Union’s Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan for Cats, which serves as a definitive document on the needs and opportunities for preservation of the earth’s remaining wild cats. He currently sits on IUCN’s Cat Specialist Core Group and served from 2003 until 2008 on the Snow Leopard Network Steering Committee. Rodney led the standardization of snow leopard field survey methods across the twelve snow leopard host countries, the Snow Leopard Information Management System (SLIMS). Working with partner agencies, he trained biologists in these methods in nature reserves in China, Pakistan, Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, and India. SLIMS has since been superseded by advancements in technology for surveying snow leopard populations. Rodney’s breadth of work over four decades has contributed to countless scientific publications. Dr. Jackson retired in 2022 and currently is serving as President of SLC’s Board of Directors, devoting his efforts toward assisting in refining the Conservancy’s strategic approach and impact, mentoring the next generation of promising range-country conservationists, and special projects.