About
Jorge Rojas Jiménez is a Costa Rican Wildlife Veterinarian where he obtained his degree at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica back in 2018. He conducted his thesis on the antibiotic sensibility of tapir fecal bacteria where he was awarded the honor mention Magna Cum Laude. He gained experience in wildlife medicine in which he worked for a year at the Jaguar Rescue Center in Puerto Viejo, Limón.
He then obtained his PhD at the Integrative Conservation (ICON) PhD Program within the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources with Dr. Sonia Hernandez as his major advisor at the University of Georgia. Through his PhD research, he has been coordinating a community-based camera trap network, and outfitting tapirs with GPS radiocollars to understand their distribution, habitat preferences, movement patterns, and to better understand farmer-tapir interactions at the Tenorio-Miravalles Biological Corridor, in Northwestern Costa Rica.
He has participated in 12 publications ranging from wildlife diseases, tapir ecology and health, and other relevant topics. He has also engaged and participated in a dozen of national and international conferences. He coordinates the One Health & Conservation Medicine Internship with more than 10 international students as part of the program.
Dr. Jorge is part of the Baird's Tapir Survival Alliance (BTSA), and an active member of the Tapir Specialist Group (TSG) of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Dr. Jorge advocates for diversity and inclusion, and for multidisciplinary collaborations where he aims to promote human-tapir coexistence through research, conservation, education, and community outreach throughout the country. His main research interests include human-wildlife interactions and management of conflicts, diseases ecology at the tapir-horse disease transmission interface, and population dynamics.