Hayes Lecture 2010

Eli Greenbaum PhD

Eli Greenbaum PhD grew up in Buffalo, NY where his passion for amphibians and reptiles was fostered at the Reptile House of the Buffalo Zoological Gardens while he was a student at City Honors. In 1996 he received his Bachelors degree in Biological Sciences from Binghamton University (Binghamton, NY) and then completed a Master's degree in 1998 at Northeast Louisiana State University.

Eli briefly volunteered in Australia to study the ecology of shingleback skinks before returning to the United States to complete his PhD at the University of Kansas.

Eli completed a postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Villanova University where he worked on the molecular systematics of geckos in 2008. He joined the faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso as an Assistant Professor.

He now works on molecular systematics to test biogeographic hypotheses as well as morphological and behavioral character evolution, species boundaries, and the identification of ancient, unique lineages that are in need of conservation. His research interests are divided among examination of specimens in collections, laboratory investigations, and fieldwork.

Research in the Congo

Many scientists have avoided working in Democratic Republic of Congo for good reason—the list of blinding, crippling and deadly diseases endemic to Central Africa is long.  Congo still suffers from a crushing history of slavery, cruel dictatorships, colonialism, and the aftermath of “Africa’s World War” from 1998–2003, in which over 5 million Congolese lost their lives.

Despite a relatively small amount of modern scientific exploration, Congo contains more biodiversity than any other country in continental Africa.  Congo’s 900,000 square miles of under-explored mountains, forests, savannahs, swamps, rivers and lakes are likely to harbor hundreds of new species of vertebrates alone.

Deforestation, a ballooning human population and climate change create unprecedented urgency to discover, document and conserve African biodiversity.  The outlook is especially bleak for frogs because a poorly understood “chytrid” fungus is spreading globally and causing the extinction of species in many parts of the world, even in pristine habitats. 

In an urgent effort to bolster Congo’s own conservation efforts and unlock the evolutionary history of Central African amphibians and reptiles with state-of-the-art DNA analyses, herpetologist Eli Greenbaum, PhD has been working in Eastern Congo since 2007. 

His multimedia presentation will illustrate the myriad challenges of working in Congo, including close encounters with rebel militia, gorillas, disease, and venomous animals ranging from poisonous frogs and ants to vipers.  Preliminary research results will be presented, including examples of new species of frogs and lizards, evolutionary genetics of several amphibian and reptile groups, and the conservation outlook for Congo’s fragile fauna.