Idelisa Bonnelly de Calventi was born in 1931 in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. She studied marine biology in New York, as there were no schools teaching this in the Dominican Republic. She returned in 1962 and began teaching at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), founding the first institution for the study of biology in the country. In 1966, she founded the Institute of Marine Biology, which later became the Research Center of Marine Biology. In 1974, Bonnelly founded the Academy of Sciences of the Dominican Republic, and in 1986, she was instrumental in the creation of the first protected area for the humpback whale, Santuario de los Bancos de la Plata y la Navidad.
