Primary Job Title Director Primary Organization 
Smithsonian Institution
Location Washington, District of Columbia, United States Regions Washington DC Metro Area, Southern US Gender Male
Pierre Comizzoli, a research biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and leader of the Pan-Smithsonian Cryo-Initiative, is the Smithsonian’s consortia director for science. The consortia director and the consortia committee consider proposals for innovative research, exhibitions and programs from around the Smithsonian to
determine which ones will receive funding.
Comizzoli holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine from the Veterinary School of Alfort and a doctorate from the University of Tours in France. After working for five years as a research scientist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, he joined SCBI’s Center for Species Survival in 2002 to develop new projects on gamete and tissue cryopreservation for rare and endangered species.
He is also in charge of conservation projects on wild carnivores and ungulates in Northern Africa—he is the chair of the Conservation and Scientific Committee of the Sahara Conservation Fund—and in Southeast Asia, where he is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission Saola Working Group. Comizzoli has received several professional awards, including the Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize (2008 and 2012) and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2011).
