Heather Kasey is the founder and director of ELEI, Elephant Education Initiative. Through her extensive travel and volunteer work all over Southeast Asia and Africa, friends began to make requests to travel with Heather to explore the world and meet elephants along the way. Out of this request, Heather began to put together eco-tourism trips for friends and family. And in 2017 Elephant Education Initiative, ELEI began. (Note: ELEI is pronounced Ellie, which is what South Africans call elephants.)

Heather graduated with her master’s degree in 2021 with a focus on human-elephant conflict from the Amboseli and Maasai Mara regions of Kenya. Leading up to graduation, she did extensive research studies, funding her own research, and working with the Maasai in the Amboseli region trying to get a better understanding of the impacts of human-elephant conflict on the local people who live in the areas surrounding national parks. 100% of the Maasai who were interviewed in a study consisting of 150 individuals, all believed in the power of education.