Mireya Mayor (born 1973) is an American anthropologist, primatologist, and wildlife correspondent for National Geographic, part of a research expedition that discovered a new species of lemur, considered the world's smallest primate. [1] [2] She has co-written several scientific papers on lemur species, [3] and has been referred to as the "female Indiana Jones." [4] [5]
Mayor, born in 1973, grew up in Miami and was raised by her mother, grandmother, and aunt, who had emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba in 1965. [6] [7] Her mother, a nurse, would not allow her to join the Girl Scouts, saying it was too dangerous. [8]
She studied at the University of Miami where she obtained her bachelor's degree in anthropology and philosophy, [9] and for four years was a cheerleader for the NFL Miami Dolphins. [4]
Mayor, a Fulbright Scholar and a National Science Foundation fellow, earned her PhD in anthropology from Stony Brook University in New York in 2008. [10] [11]
In 1999, Mayor was hired as the first female wildlife correspondent for the National Geographic series Ultimate Explorer . Two episodes she hosted, "Girl Power" and "Into the Lost World", received Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Science, Technology and Nature Programming. [9]
On a 2001 expedition in Madagascar, she was part of a research group who described a new species of mouse lemur, Microcebus mittermeieri, or Mittermeier's mouse lemur, [6] [12] after Russell Mittermeier, the president of green group Conservation International and a renowned field primatologist. [2] [1] Mayor told NPR in a 2015 interview that following the discovery, she persuaded the prime minister of Madagascar to declare the mouse lemur's habitat a national park. [13]
In 2009, she was cast in the Mark Burnett-produced miniseries Expedition Africa on the History Channel, which retraced H.M. Stanley's expedition through Tanzania to find David Livingstone. [14]
In 2019, she was cast in the Travel Channel documentary series Expedition Bigfoot , in which she and other wildlife researchers spent three weeks in the Pacific Northwest searching for evidence that Bigfoot exists. [15] The first season aired in January 2020 and in 2024 was in its fourth season. [16]
In October 2019, Mayor began to direct the Exploration and Science Communications Initiative at Florida International University. [7] [11]
In September 2022, she was the subject of the children's book, "Just Wild Enough: Mireya Mayor, Primatologist". [17]
Mireya Mayor has six children, five from her first marriage and one with her second husband, Phil Fairclough, who is an executive producer. [8]
In 2018, her home was in Great Falls, Virginia. [6]