Pierre Comizzoli

Pierre Comizzoli started his career more than 30 years ago as a research veterinarian in French Guyana to study the seasonal reproduction of different mammalian species living in the rain forest.

His next appointment was in the African Sahelo-Saharan region where he was in charge of programs monitoring health and fertility in livestock species.  Dr. Comizzoli then completed a PhD in 2000 on in vitro fertilization in bovine and deer species.

After receiving his PhD, he worked on the implementation of reproductive technologies and Genome Resource Banking for the conservation of wild ungulates at the National Museum of Natural History of Paris.

In 2002, Dr. Comizzoli joined the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute at the National Zoological Park in Washington, DC as a staff scientist to develop new cryo-banking projects on gametes and gonadal tissues from rare and endangered species.  In addition to research activities, Dr. Comizzoli has been serving in diverse leadership positions at the Smithsonian Institution.  He is coordinating since 2007 a Smithsonian-wide initiative to improve the management and use of biomaterial and environmental cryo-repositories within the Institution.

He has been Director of the Consortium for Biodiversity (2014-2015) and is now Senior Program Officer for Science in the Office of the Under-Secretary Science and Research.  He is also on the editorial board of several international journals and has been an Associate Editor for several years.