There, she was charged with counting and measuring the ivory stockpile in the country's vaults in preparation for Richard Leakey's now-famous internationally televised burning of the tusks.

She was granted a Petri scholarship to attend Princeton University to complete her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 1994 – 2002, where she studied elephants in the Shimba Hills on the Kenyan coast.

After receiving her PhD, Kahumbu returned to the Kenya Wildlife Service and led the Kenyan delegation to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

[2] In 2007, Kahumbu became the executive director of WildlifeDirect, a nonprofit organization co-founded in 2004 by her mentor Richard Leakey as an online platform to provide voice to African conservationists.

[7] The organization has since become the largest wildlife blogging site in Africa and has covered a diverse array of conservation issues—from protecting chimpanzees in Sierra Leone to African Painted Dogs in Zimbabwe.