Dr. Mireya Mayor—hailed by The New York Times as “The Female Indiana Jones”—is a world-renowned primatologist, explorer, and Emmy Award-nominated TV host. What she is not is typical!

As National Geographic’s first female wildlife correspondent, Mireya launched her TV career, reporting to Lisa Ling from remote locales where she was conducting field research.  Since then, she has hosted dozens of documentaries, including her own series Wild Nights with Mireya Mayor (Nat GeoWILD), Mark Burnett’s Expedition Africa (The History Channel), and the current hit series, Expedition Bigfoot, (Travel Channel).  Get the idea that she writes her own rules?  Mireya grew up in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, overprotected by her Cuban immigrant parents, so, when she won a Fulbright Scholarship that would send her packing a machete, and hiking into the jungles of South America, it would be her first camping trip.

Not one for rules or limitations, Mireya carved her own path.  Why should she not be a budding scientist during the week and a Miami Dolphins cheerleader on Sundays?  And, despite her choice of careers and her target area of early fieldwork, Madagascar, why should she not also have a family?  Mireya has pretty much redefined what it means to write your own narrative.

This loving mother of six is in near-constant motion, pushing strollers, being a dance mom, kissing scraped knees, while reading scripts, coaching FIU professors in the art of science communication, and searching for that elusive figure in the backwoods that looks a little like Chewbacca. Mireya knows a thing or two about searching for elusive and little known species.  She co-discovered and described the world’s smallest primate, a tiny mouse lemur, in the fragmented jungles of Madagascar. In addition to her regular TV appearances, Dr. Mayor is the Director of Exploration and Science Communications at Florida International University (FIU). Onstage she pairs fascinating real-life stories of her adventures—and misadventures—with inspiring solutions for the next generation of leaders, educators, innovators, creators, and  fearless young women.