The wildlife biologist left her hometown in the middle of bear country in the Rocky Mountains and made the move to Gladstone, a Central Queensland city with a grizzly bear population of zero.

And while moving to the other side of the world to study an animal living in your own backyard might sound strange to some, Ms Elmeligi couldn't be happier with the decision.

"At universities in Alberta (Ms Elmeligi's home state) there are professors studying elephants in Africa or you know, whales off the coast of Russia or whatever and this is no different," she said.

"The academic world is very global. It's not about where you're based or where you study.

"It's really about who you study with and how you take advantage of these random collaborative opportunities."

Since 2013, the Central Queensland University PhD candidate has spent about half her year back home in the Canadian Rockies observing the huge mammals and the other half in Gladstone crunching the data with her supervisor, Professor Owen Nevin.

The pair met a few years ago while studying grizzlies on the British Columbian coast.

Professor Nevin was based in the UK at the time but moved to Australia to take up a post at CQU, where he has now been elevated to Gladstone region Associate Vice Chancellor.

"If you're working on conservation of big carnivores, there's very few universities in the world where those are on your door step," he said.

"And so while it seems sort of counterintuitive to be based here on our beautiful Gladstone campus on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef world heritage site going 'well I work on big carnivores in the mountains of Canada' but essentially, no matter what university I was at, wasn't going to be at my study site."

Ms Elmeligi is looking into how grizzly bears and people share hiking trails in the Canadian Rockies in an attempt to improve both bear conservation and human safety.

Her most recent studies using remote cameras surprisingly found hikers were more likely to stumble on the potentially dangerous carnivores on walking paths closer to roads.

This led to warnings for adventurers to always carry their bear spray, which is actually a real thing, basically a high-strength pepper spray.

And while none of this is useful information for the average Aussie, the 39-year-old says her work has real applications in Australia.

"The Rocky Mountain national parks where I'm doing my work are a world heritage area so there is a tonne of international visitors that come here every year and there are also a lot of local people who recreate in these mountain parks," she said.

"Something like that is very similar to Fraser Island, where you've got Australians that are going to Fraser Island and camping and spending quality time but it's also a very popular tourist destination.

"Anytime you've got a protected area that's also a really high place of visitation, managers are constantly trying to balance the needs of native species and recreationists."

Ms Elmeligi's research is funded by Parks Canada.

Like this story? Be our friend on Facebook.