Ignacio Vilchis, Ph.D.

Ignacio (Nacho) Vilchis serves San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance as Associate Director of Recovery Ecology. In this role, Nacho oversees day-to-day operations and research science our California least tern and western snowy plover monitoring program, as well as conservation projects in Mexico and Hawaii. Nacho is currently involved with research aimed to help inform adaptive management of California condors and thick-billed parrots in Mexico and Hawaiian petrels on the island of Lanai. Nacho also provides key support for management of Cocha Cashu Biological Station in the Peruvian Amazon.

Nacho earned his doctoral degree from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in conservation biology with the Wildlife Health Center at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis. His dissertation and postdoctoral research focused on determining factors that make certain species of seabirds more susceptible to rapid changes in their environment.