Iroro Tanshi

Iroro Tanshi (born )

Education Tanshi obtained a degree in Environmental Science and a master's degree in Environmental Quality Management at the University of Benin in Benin City, Nigeria. She then studied at the University of Leeds in England, where she obtained a master's in Biodiversity Conservation before undertaking research with Tigga Kingston at Texas Tech University in the US, where she was awarded a PhD in 2021.

Career Tanshi discovered the only population of the short-tailed roundleaf bat (Hipposideros curtus) in Nigeria, near the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, and saved it from extinction. Tanshi also protected Nigeria's largest colony of straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) from a government proposal to destroy their roost tree.

Awards In 2020, Tanshi won a Future for Nature award from the Future for Nature Foundation, in recognition of her pioneering work discovering bat species. She was the first African woman to win the award.

In 2021, Tanshi won a Whitley Award issued by the Whitley Fund for Nature.

In 2026, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize.