Dr. Laurie Marker is Founder and Executive Director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) with its headquarters in Namibia, Africa. Having worked with cheetahs since 1974, Laurie set up the not-for-profit Fund in 1990 and moved to Namibia to develop a permanent Conservation Research Centre for the wild cheetah. In 1992, CCF became a registered Namibian Trust. CCF’s ground-breaking activities are housed at their International Research and Education Centre in the main cheetah habitat of the country. In July 2000, CCF opened a field research station to the public featuring a Visitor’s Centre as well as a Cheetah Museum and Education Centre.

Dr. Marker helped develop the U.S. and international captive program, establishing the most successful captive cheetah-breeding program in North America during her 16 years (1974-1988) at Oregon's Wildlife Safari in the USA. Laurie first came to Namibia in 1977 when she brought a captive-born, hand-raised cheetah to Namibia to determine if a cheetah must be taught to hunt or if the process was fully instinctual. This was the first-of-its-kind research to better understand if there was a chance for captive-born cheetahs to be re-introduced into the wild. Dr. Marker learned about the conflict between livestock farmers and cheetahs in Namibia, discovering that wild cheetahs needed help. For the next ten years she continued travelling to Africa to learn more about the wild cheetah’s problems and what could be done to assist wild populations.

In the early 1980's, with collaborators at the National Zoo and National Cancer Institute (USA), Dr. Marker helped identify the cheetah’s lack of genetic variation, thus causing the species greater problems for survival. In 1988, in collaboration with these two institutions she became the Executive Director of the Centre for New Opportunities in Animal Health Sciences, based at Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo. She continues to serve as a NOAHS Research Fellow. In 1988 she developed the International Cheetah Studbook, a registry of captive cheetah worldwide, and is the International Studbook Keeper. In 1996 she was made a vice-chair of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Species Survival Commission’s (SSC) Cat Specialist Group and now serves as a member on the core management group. In 2000 Marker was recognised as one of Time Magazine’s Heroes for the Planet and given the Burrow’s Conservation Award from Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2001, she was locally honoured in Namibia, receiving the Paul Harris Fellowship from the Windhoek Rotary Club, and in 2002 received a special award from the Sanveld Conservancy, signifying Namibia’s farming community’s public acknowledgement of Dr. Marker and CCF’s contributions. In 2003, Laurie received her doctorate from Oxford University, England.

Dr. Marker works actively to carry out CCF's mission: “to secure habitats for the long-term survival of cheetah and their ecosystem through multi-disciplined and integrated programs of conservation, research and education”. CCF’s activities include: bio-medical research to learn more about over-all health, diseases, reproduction and genetic make-up of the population; distribution, habitat and ecosystem research; wildlife and livestock management to reduce predator conflicts; and non-lethal predator control methods. One of CCF’s most successful programs is the Livestock Guarding Dog Program. CCF also supports extensive environmental education programmes; staffs conduct school assemblies throughout the country as well as at CCF’s Centre. CCF also has a field operations base in Kenya, with close links to cheetah conservationists in Botswana, South Africa and Iran.