Dirk Stevenson is the 2024 recipient of the SEPARC Conservation Hero Award. This award recognizes those individuals who have made significant contributions to conservation of amphibians and reptiles in the southeast region of PARC, but who are unlikely to be recognized for their efforts.

A graduate of Southern Illinois University (B.S., Zoology), Dirk has worked as a herpetologist in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States for 34 years. He has worked for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, The Nature Conservancy, The Orianne Society, and the Department of Defense (Fort Stewart, Georgia). Currently, he manages Altamaha Environmental Consulting, based in Hinesville, Georgia.

Dirk has conducted status/distribution surveys and population monitoring studies of numerous imperiled amphibian/reptile taxa, including the one-toed amphiuma, striped newt, frosted flatwoods salamander, mimic glass lizard, spotted turtle, Suwannee alligator snapping turtle, gopher tortoise, and eastern indigo snake. Most of his fieldwork has been carried out in the rich longleaf pine−wiregrass habitats of southern Georgia, a region where he has led countless outdoor educational events for college students and other budding herp conservationists. 

Dirk has authored over 50 scientific papers and has published natural history columns in South Carolina Wildlife, Alabama Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, the Gopher Tortoise Council Newsletter, and the Savannah Morning News.