Husband-and-wife team Sherif and Mindy Baha El Dinteam work together in scientific research and nature conservation. Two of Egypt' s leading bird experts, both advise the Nature Conservation Sector of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency and serve as freelance environmental consultants. Additionally, they jointly manage a conservation project for the globally threatened Egyptian Tortoise.

Mindy Baha El Din, was born in Chicago, Ill. in 1958 and grew up in Indiana. After studying Arabic and Economics at Indiana University, she took classes in field ornithology at Cornell University, NY and became an avid birder. In 1988 she was hired by BirdLife International to set up an environmental education center at the Giza Zoological Garden in Cairo, Egypt. Since 1992, she has been a wildlife management consultant in Egypt, producing educational materials, launching campaigns promoting migratory bird conservation and studying migration through Egypt.

Sherif Baha El Din was born in 1960 on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. Fascinated by nature since boyhood, he studied art as a undergraduate in Egypt, Urban and Regional Environmental Planning at Virginia Polytechnic, USA for his Masters and is currently enrolled as a PhD Candidate in Ecology at Nottingham University, UK. One of the foremost naturalists in the Middle East, Sherif has illustrated and authored three books on the birds of Egypt, most recently the Directory of Important Bird Areas in Egypt. Among the many positions he holds, he currently serves as an Associate to the Field Museum, Chicago, Ill, BirdLife International Affiliate to Egypt and member of the Technical Committee of the African-Eurasian Waterfowl Agreement.

Sherif and Mindy met and married in 1989 and reside in Cairo, Egypt. They have three cats, dozens of geckos, a snake, a scorpion and hundreds of tortoises.