Marisa Tellez

Marisa Tellez was raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles, CA. She earned a BS in Zoology and BA in Cultural Anthropology from University of California, Santa Barbara (2005), and a MA in Biology from University of California, Los Angeles (2010). Marisa began her work with crocodilians at the EcoStation and LA Zoo in 2007, and has since traveled to Louisiana, Florida, Mexico, Belize, Brazil, and Southeast Asia to discover the ecological and evolutionary interaction between crocodilians and their parasites to help aid in crocodilian conservation world-wide. Marisa is considered one of the experts of crocodilian disease and ecology, and currently has a book in print on crocodilian parasitism. Marisa is now in the process of finishing the PhD program in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at UCLA.