Dr. Stesha Pasachnik, received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, where she studied conservation genetics of an endangered group of iguanas. After completing her Ph.D., she worked as the regional director of the Bay Islands Foundation in Honduras, and then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. She is currently a conservation biologist with the Fort Worth Zoo, Texas, and co-chair of the IUCN SSC Iguana Specialist Group. 

She is also a board member of Kanahau Útila Research and Conservation Facility, in Honduras. Stesha began working with iguanas in 2000 when she joined Dr. John Iverson as a field assistant on his long-term study of iguanas in The Bahamas. Since that time she has worked in iguana conservation primarily within the Caribbean and Central America. She seeks to address conservation in a holistic way, incorporating education and outreach, with ecological and molecular research to inform conservation strategies in the most appropriate ways.