{"id":967,"date":"2026-06-22T09:57:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/?p=967"},"modified":"2026-06-23T09:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T08:20:00","slug":"alumni-spotlight-kennedy-lemayian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/2026\/06\/22\/alumni-spotlight-kennedy-lemayian\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Spotlight: Kennedy Lemayian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Kennedy, thanks for being this month\u2019s spotlight! What have you been up to since graduating from DICE?<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m halfway through my PhD at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. At the moment, I\u2019m in Kenya for my fieldwork, collecting some preliminary data. I\u2019m at the beginning of my research, looking at human-elephant relations in rapidly changing social and ecological landscapes.<\/p>\n

What inspired your research?<\/h3>\n

A lot of my inspiration comes from where I grew up. I\u2019m Samburu, an Indigenous pastoralist community in northern Kenya that is closely related to the Maasai. For generations, people in my community have lived alongside elephants, and there are many stories, beliefs, and cultural traditions that reflect that relationship. One belief, for example, is that elephants and humans share a common ancestry, which speaks to the deep connection many people feel with them. Traditional practices, such as honouring elephant carcasses with green twigs, also reflect that sense of kinship and respect, much like how people place flowers on the graves of loved ones.<\/p>\n

What fascinated me was seeing how that long-standing relationship has been changing. Over the last decade, human-elephant conflict has increased significantly across many parts of northern Kenya. I became interested in understanding not only why conflict occurs, but also how social, cultural, and environmental changes are reshaping relationships that have existed for generations.<\/p>\n

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Kennedy accepting the British Council GREAT scholarship to study at DICE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That interest formed the basis of my Master’s research at DICE, where I examined patterns and drivers of human-elephant conflict in Samburu landscapes. While ecological factors were important, my interviews with local communities revealed a much bigger story. People often linked conflict to broader changes such as shifts from nomadic pastoralism to agro-pastoralism, increasing settlement, land-use change, resource scarcity, and climate change. These transformations are changing how people and elephants share space and resources, disrupting long-standing patterns of coexistence.<\/p>\n

Those findings left me with many new questions and ultimately inspired my PhD. My current research builds on that work by exploring how changing social and ecological conditions are influencing relationships between people and elephants, and what that means for coexistence and conservation in the future. It has also been rewarding to see my Master’s research recently published in Pachyderm.<\/p>\n

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Kennedy with his Master’s cohort on a field trip<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What do you remember most from your time at DICE?<\/h3>\n

From my time at DICE, I remember the amazing lectures. I thought they were really well-planned and engaging. The field trips were great too; I enjoyed the trip to Jersey especially. Also, the assignments weren\u2019t just assignments \u2013 they helped us develop practical skills in data analysis, how to do scientific writing and and much more. We had one on assessing people\u2019s attitudes towards green spaces which I thought was fascinating.
\nWe also had workshops on statistical analysis, GIS – I still use those skills today, they\u2019ve been really helpful, particularly the academic writing and data analysis skills. Before coming to DICE, I already had strong field experience through my work with Save the Elephants. However I was missing some of the analytical and scientific writing skills that are essential in this field. DICE helped me develop those skills and showed me how to turn field observations and data into meaningful research. Coming to DICE, adding those critical skills elevated me in my career and also opened up doors for me to do a PhD at Yale.<\/p>\n\n\t\t