Alecia Ann Lilly

Alecia Ann Lilly, dearly beloved daughter of Dorothy Lilly Loggins, stepdaughter of Charles D. Loggins, dear sister to Marcella Lilly McNeill, and aunt to Cameron, Nicholas and Katy, passed away peacefully in a Pretoria, South Africa hospital on May 29, 2009 with family & friends by her side. Dr. Lilly, 53, senior scientist and vice president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International was stricken while in the Virunga Volcanoes region of Rwanda. She was airlifted to South Africa where, joined by her mother and friends, she subsequently died. Dr. Lilly was a graduate of Asheboro High School and completed her undergraduate degree at Columbia Woman's College where she graduated magna cum laude. She went on to complete her graduate education gaining a Ph.D. from Rutger's University. Dr. Lilly was an internationally known primatologist and conservationist, with expertise in stress and neurochemistry in primates, macaque and gorilla behavior, intestinal parasitism in gorillas and humans, and livelihoods, health, and development projects for forest and indigenous peoples such as the Pygmies of Central Africa. Dr. Lilly's doctoral thesis explored the relationships between stress, brain neurochemistry, and hormones in rhesus monkeys. She continued to research stress with more than eight species of monkeys from 1992 to 1998, publishing many scientific research articles, supported by awards from National Institutes of Health. In 1992--1993, Dr. Lilly also conducted conservation surveys of Barbary macaques in Morocco and Algeria. In 1998, she moved to the Mondika Research Center in the Central African Republic to carry out research on western lowland gorillas and assist in habituating them to human presence. While doing research on intestinal parasites in gorillas she became interested in the link with local people, leading her to develop a program she entitled Ecosystem Health. This program carried on her research about cross transmission of parasites between local people and gorillas, but also provided medical care and treatment for forest peoples. In 2001, she was employed by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, and moved her program to Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. As Vice President, Africa Programs for the Fossey Fund, Dr. Lilly directed the activities of more than four hundred employees in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was instrumental in the creation of the Fossey Fund's ecosystem health and community development programs now successfully helping hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda and the Congo. Dr. Lilly's friends and colleagues throughout the world are saddened and shocked by her passing. All Fossey Fund employees and the board of directors are mourning her loss. Africa based employees are especially bereft and have held memorial services. "She was not only our leader but our mother, and now we are orphans" said one staff member. Arrangements have been made to bring Dr. Lilly back to the United States and a memorial service will be held at the First United Methodist Church, 224 N. Fayetteville Street, Asheboro, NC on Sunday, the 7th of June, 2009 at two-thirty in the afternoon. Visitation will follow immediately after the memorial service in the church parlor. The family request that memorials be sent in her name to the Dian Fossey Gorilla International, 800 Cherokee Avenue S.E., Atlanta Georgia, 30315, or a charity of the donors choice. Arrangements by Pugh Funeral Home, Asheboro.