On stage at Page Auditorium Saturday night, Luke Dollar surveyed the room before sighing with satisfaction.
"It's good to be home," he said. "It's good to be back at Duke."
But Dollar wasn't alluding to a three-month summer absence, or even an exciting semester spent studying abroad. Instead, Dollar, Trinity '95 and Nicholas '06, had returned to his alma mater to present his on-site research on Madagascar's mammalian predator, the fossa.
The lecture, hosted by the National Geographic Society and the Nicholas School of the Environment and titled "An Evening of Field Research and Exploration," also featured presentations by adventure filmmaker Rick Ridgeway and John Francis, vice president for research, conservation and exploration at National Geographic. Many members from the local community as well as some students attended the lecture.
A National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Dollar has been studying the elusive fossa for over a decade, he said Saturday evening. In his time abroad, he has painstakingly documented the habits of the "big bad wolf" of Madagascar as well as worked to prevent deforestation of the country's diminishing dry forest at Ankarafantsika National Park in the northwestern part of the country.
Dollar also partnered with natives to help them transition from their traditional slash-and-burn lifestyle to a more sustainable alternative, he said. An ecotourism camp site he helped convert from a soccer field has served more than 60,000 plates of food with minimal harm to the environment.
"The synergy of sound science combined with grassroots ground-level intelligence information about what the problems are" is crucial, he said.
Dollar, who got his start "scooping lemur poop" at the Duke Lemur Center his freshman year, is a positive influence for many students attending the lecture. Junior Stephanie Pan worked with him in Madagascar last summer and was encouraged to start her own ecological conservation project in the near future.
"I'm just looking for inspiration here, and also how I would go through the logistics of starting something like that," she said.
As for Dollar, Duke allowed him the resources to achieve his greatest aspirations, and he urges current students to similarly take advantage of the University's options.
"My advice to a Dukie would be to capitalize on the opportunities that are here, because they are extraordinary and they are relatively unique to the world," he said.
Along with funding Dollar's research, National Geographic has given 54 grants to Duke students and conservationists in the past, totaling more than $840,000, Francis said.
Before the lecture, the organization also held a National Geographic Young Explorers Grants Workshop for students interested in pursuing grants from the group to support their research or project.
National Geographic aims to motivate the global community to care about the environment, and conservationists have worked all over the world, Francis said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.