Born and raised in Kenya, Shivani believes the key to lion conservation is working in partnership with local communities. She founded Ewaso Lions in 2007 to promote coexistence between carnivores and people.
Shivani’s commitment to Kenya’s lions has earned her a 2014 Whitley Award, the 2023 Whitley Gold Award with the team, the 2013 Rabinowitz-Kaplan Prize for the Next Generation in Wild Cat Conservation, the Africa’s Young Women Conservation Biologist of 2009 award by the Society of Conservation Biology, the Virginia McKenna Award for Compassionate Conservation from the Born Free Foundation, and she has been named an Emerging Explorer by National Geographic. She is a member of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, African Lion Working Group, Kenya’s Large Carnivore Taskforce, and a founding member of the Pride Lion Conservation Alliance. Shivani is also on the Steering Committee of the Ethical Conservation Alliance and on the Sounds Right Advisory Panel.
Shivani has a BSc in Environmental Science from Lancaster University, an MSc in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from Edinburgh Napier University, and was awarded her DPhil in Zoology from Oxford University in 2017. Previously she worked for the Kenya Wildlife Service and Save The Elephants. Shivani moved to Samburu in 2002 and lives in the Ewaso Lions Camp in Westgate Conservancy.