Executive Director - Dr. Sarah Otterstrom

sarah@pasopacifico.org

Sarah is an ecologist with over 17 years experience in Central America where she has lived and worked as a student, scientist, and leader in biodiversity conservation. After learning first-hand of the unique beauty of tropical dry forests and pacific coast habitats, she became determined to dedicate her life to protecting them. Otterstrom received a Ph.D. in Ecology, in the area of emphasis of Human Ecology, from UC Davis. Her scientific research has focused on the ecological impacts of fires in tropical forests and the cultural practices that influence tropical fire regimes. As a conservation scientist she serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biotropica. She has also served on the Association for Fire Ecology and the Sociedad Mesoamericana para la Biología y Conservación.

US Program Administrator - Daniela Weiner

Daniela@pasopacifico.org

Daniela moved to the Ventura area from Albuquerque, New Mexico where she worked for a local community supported agriculture farm. She is a recent college graduate of the University of New Mexico where she received her Bachelor of Science in Anthropology with emphasis on human evolutionary ecology and cultural studies with a minor in Womens Studies.  Daniela works in the trenches of office paperwork in the US office to keep everyone well organized and prepared. Her passion for sustainability and conservation makes her a perfect addition to the Paso Pacifico team.

Country Director – Liza González, MSc,

liza@pasopacifico.org

Liza has been a leading conservationist in Nicaragua for over a decade. As an ecologist trained at the Universidad Centroamericana in Managua, she has worked in varying capacities for non-governmental organizations, on community-based conservation projects and in leadership positions within the Nicaraguan ministry of the environment. In recent years she was director of the National Protected Areas System, overseeing the management of 76 protected areas and also served as the Director of the Biodiversity Program, an agency charged with evaluating and protecting the nation’s biodiversity. Most recently, González served as a consultant to the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor project developing strategies for corridor implementation.

Environmental Education – Julie Martínez

Julie leads our environmental education program, sharing the wonders of our natural world with children at six different schools across the Paso del Istmo. She studied biology at the Universidad Nacional de Nicaragua in Managua. Since joining Paso Pacifico in 2006, Julie has been instrumental in organizing many community workshops and school events. She especially enjoys helping students to gain hands-on learning in the forests and beaches in their neighborhood.

Nicaragua Program Administrator - Ulda Morazan

Ulda is a professional administrator and joined Paso Pacifico manage our Nicaragua office. Ulda is originally from the northern Nicaraguan province of Esteli, though moved to the capital Managua when she started college. Prior to joining Paso Pacifico, Ulda worked for six years at the General Department of Income (the Nicaraguan IRS) and specialized in financial audits. Since joining Paso Pacifico in January 2008, Morazan is enjoying using her professional skills to contribute towards conservation in the country so loves, Nicaragua.    

Conservation Scientist – Martín Lezama, MSc

nicapinol2002@yahoo.com

Martín is a wildlife biologist with expertise in wetland conservation, parrots, and migratory birds. Martín taught ecology at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) for fourteen years. As part of Paso Pacifico's scientific team, Martin is working to understand the threats and status of the endangered Yellow-naped Parrot in the Paso del Istmo. Recently, Martín was an author on the management plan for Nicaragua's largest protected area, Reserva Indio Maíz. He presently serves as the secretary for the Sociedad Mesoamericana para la Biología y Conservación.  

Turtle Program Coordinator - Salvador Sanchez

Since Paso Pacifico began working with the coastal community of El Ostional in 2007, the young and energetic Salvador was an important supporter.  When he completed his term as an elected community leader in 2008, Salvador joined Paso Pacifico to work as Coordinator for Community-Based Turtle Conservation programs. As a natural born leader, Salvador’s positive influence has helped convince many turtle poachers to abandon their trade and begin protecting sea turtle nests, where they receive a performance payment for every baby sea turtle successfully hatched.   Salvador also helped Paso Pacifico identify and recruit the community tour guides, who now lead the area’s most exclusive nature tours.        

Sandra Pearson  –  President   

Ms. Pearson has expertise in business management and organizational development and currently works as an instructor at three California community colleges. She is an experienced volunteer nonprofit leader, as both a staff member and board volunteer. Her experience as President of the Board of Directors for a major non-profit in the Bay area is most pertinent to Paso Pacifico. While in this position, she successfully represented the organization to the general public and the media, and participated in successful fundraising programs that resulted in broad public support for the organization. She is fluent in English and has intermediate fluency in Spanish.

Julia Medina, Ph.D  –  Secretary 

Julia Medina received a doctorate from the University of California Davis in Latin American Literature. Recently, Julia joined the faculty at Albion College in the state of Michigan as a scholar in culture and history of Central America. Previously, she worked as a program coordinator for the University's Center for History, Society, and Culture. Julia was born in Nicaragua and immigrated to the United States with her family as an adolescent. Since then, she has maintained her cultural ties with her native country. Her family continues to produce sustainable shade-grown coffee in the mountains of Nicaragua.

George Gorman, Ph.D  –  Treasurer

George Gorman received a Ph.D in Biology from Harvard University, and later was Professor of Biology at UCLA. His specialty was evolutionary biology and herpetology. His primary research area was in the Caribbean region. At approximately age 40, he left academia and studied law at the University of California, Berkeley. Upon graduation he was admitted to the California Bar and the federal Patent Bar. After a brief legal career, his “day job” for the last 25 years has been asset management/financial planning.  During this period, he found time to spend a year in Costa Rica with Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology; two years at the Yale School of Forestry (partly as a 60 year old grad student, partly as a research associate); and several semesters as a visiting fellow at Cornell University. He has been involved with the management of the endowment funds for the Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund for many years.

Sean Carney 

Sean was one of the first employees of Carbonfund.org, which has become the largest carbon offset retailer in the United States. There he worked with such corporations as Dell, Volkswagen and Orbitz to develop and manage carbon neutral programs. He also managed the financing and development of the third reforestation project in the world to be validated to the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Standard (CCBS). Sean has researched carbon sequestration potential of tropical forests in Costa Rica and his honors thesis was on forest carbon finance and sustainable development. Sean has a degree in business and environmental studies from the University of Southern California. Sean is a member of the Forest Carbon Standards Committee, which is developing an ANSI-accepted forest carbon standard.

Rodolfo Dirzo, Ph.D.

Rodolfo Dirzo is a conservation scientist with a passion for conserving the tropical forests of Latin America. He is currently Bing Professor in Environmental Sciences at Stanford University. However, Rodolfo taught for many years at the Universidad Nacional Aut—noma de Mexico where he still continues to collaborate. While at the UNAM, he also directed the Los Tuxtlas Tropical Research Station in Southeast Mexico. Rodolfo's scientific interests are focused on the ecology, evolution, and conservation of ecological processes in tropical forests.

Rick Smith

Rick Smith is a former US National Park Service employee. During his 31-year career with the NPS, he served in Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Everglades, Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, the Service’s Washington, DC headquarters, and two of its regional offices, Philadelphia and Santa Fe. His last assignment with the NPS was as the Associate Regional Director for Natural and Cultural Resources in the Park Service’s former Southwest Regional Office, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Prior to joining the NPS, Smith was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the National University in Asuncion, Paraguay. Since his retirement in 1994, Smith has provided conservation consulting services in Latin America for the World Bank, the Internamerican Development Bank, the US Peace Corps, the United States Information Agency, the United Nations and several private consulting firms. Smith has authored numerous magazine and journal articles on conservation issues in the developing world. He lives in Placitas, New Mexico.

Communications and Outreach - Wendy Purnell

wendy@pasopacifico.org

Wendy is a PR and fundraising professional with over a decade of experience in publishing, education, and policy. She started the Czech Republic's first nationwide environmental education program where she brought interdisciplinary lessons into high school civics and science classes. Wendy enjoys highlighting the achievements of non-governmental organizations, and working with Paso Pacifico combines her passion for individual rights, deep commitment to wildlife conservation, and love of the people and landscape of Central America.

Conservation Scientist – Kim Williams-Guillén, PhD 

kwilliamsg@pasopacifico.org

Kim is a conservation scientist whose main interests involve the role of agricultural and human-managed lands in tropical mammal conservation. She has been coordinating Paso Pacífico’s primate conservation and applied research efforts. This work focuses on monitoring spider monkey populations in the forest fragments in western Nicaragua and determining priority tropical dry forest areas for restoring their corridors. Kim received her Ph.D. in 2003 from New York University. Currently, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan where she works with Dr. Ivette Perfecto on questions of biodiversity and its ecological function in agricultural systems in Central America.

Conservation Scientist – Stephani Spehar, Ph.D.

Stephanie is a primatologist and conservation scientist who received her Ph.D. from New York University in 2006. Her primary interests focus on large-scale ecosystem conservation and the response of “umbrella species” such as primates and other large-bodied wildlife to anthropogenic habitat disturbance, with an eye toward developing effective conservation policy. She is also interested in the ecological role of primates and their effect on overall biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Her dissertation research was conducted with white-bellied spider monkeys (Ateles belzebuth) in northeastern Ecuador, and she also has experience working on wildlife-related conservation issues in Asia. She visited Nicaragua in January 2007 to assist in sample collection and project planning, and is currently working with Paso Pacífico to examine the habitat use and behavioral ecology of spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) living in forest fragments in southern Nicaragua.

Conservation Scientist – Suzanne Hagell, PhD Candidate 

sehagell@gmail.com

Suzanne is a graduate student at the School of Forestry at Northern Arizon University where she is an IGERT Fellow. Her interests focus on the threatened spider monkey and its use of fragmented dry forest habitats. She is working with her dissertation advisers and Paso Pacífico staff to design research that will contribute to our corridor design. She has a masters degree in primatology from CUNY. Suzanne has volunteered for Paso Pacífico over the last year training farmers, making maps, and participating in primate monitoring activities.  

Wildlife Management Advisor - Cortney Vargas

cortney@pasopacifico.org
    

Cortney began working for Paso Pacifico in 2008 as the Program Administrator, managing the US headquarters and keeping staff well-equipped. Cortney left a significant and lasting legacy at Paso Pacífico by designing the Karen Warren and Susan White Spider Monkey Sanctuary and Education Center located at Domitila Reserve, Nicaragua. Cortney continues to act as an advisor for the sanctuary as she finishes a degree in Wildlife Conservation at Humboldt State University. Cortney has degrees in Wildlife Education, Animal Behavior Management, and Exotic Animal Training and Management.

Program Development - Teresa Lang

teresa@pasopacifico.org
    
Teresa first joined the Paso Pacifico team in 2007, when she worked as an intern in Nicaragua, helping to launch our eco-tourism training program and supporting initial phases of the sea turtle conservation program.   Currently, as Program Development Manager, Teresa manages our intern program, administers web content, and helps to design and seek out funding for new programs, such as our programs on climate change adaptation and environmental education with local surfers.  She has a Masters degree in International Environmental Policy from Columbia University.  Prior to returning to Paso Pacifico, Teresa spent time working for the Environmental Team at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.