EnglishPaso Pacífico owes everything to our dedicated staff, active Board of Directors, and the numerous scientists, professionals, and interns who volunteer their time. Together, we endeavor to create viable wildlife corridors along the Pacific Coast of Central America.
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US Staff
Sarah Otterstrom, PhD • Executive Director
sarah@pasopacifico.org
Sarah is an ecologist with over 18 years of experience studying and working in Central America. 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 from UC Davis with an emphasis in Human Ecology. 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. Sarah was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2015.
Kim Williams-Guillén, PhD • Director of Conservation Science
kim@pasopacifico.org
Kim is a conservation scientist whose main interests involve the role of agricultural and human-managed lands in tropical mammal conservation. She coordinates Paso Pacífico’s long-term biodiversity monitoring programs and the application of conservation science for target species such as migratory birds and spider monkeys. Kim received her Ph.D. in 2003 from New York University. Currently, she recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan where she worked with Dr. Ivette Perfecto on the role of bats and in agricultural systems in Mexico. Kim is an adjunct professor at the University of Washington, Bothell.
Kate Dolkas, Development Director
kate@pasopacifico.org
Kate has worked for numerous non-profit organizations on issues ranging from affordable housing and voter education to food security and sustainable agriculture. Kate has a Master’s degree in bioregional planning from the University of Idaho and a Bachelor’s degree in community and regional development from UC Davis. She brings her diverse experience and training to assist in managing the Ventura office and to work on program development and grant management. Kate is thrilled to be on the Paso Pacífico team and work toward protecting and restoring the Pacific coast of Nicaragua.
Nicole Salazar, Accounts Manager
nicole@pasopacifico.org
Nicole started at Paso Pacífico in 2010 as an administrator at the US office. Nicole’s experience and degree in sociology and business management has helped her to adapt her skill set to the needs of Paso Pacífico. Working here has been a good fit because helping and teaching have been a consistent part of her work, from working as an English teacher in Taiwan to teaching people healthy living at Weight Watchers. As an amateur photographer, her favorite subject has always been nature. As an observer and lover of nature, she has enjoyed working with Paso Pacífico by providing administrative and accounting support to further their causes.
Alice O’Connor and Jacob Farner
Eliza Woolley, Social Media Manager
eliza@pasopacifico.org
Eliza was raised in semi-rural Southern California. While she enjoyed and aced college classes in basic biology and the cultural history of medicinal plants, her studies focused on the humanities. In 2015, she graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in English and two minors in editing and digital humanities. She joined Paso Pacífico in 2016 and enjoys applying her acquired expertise to help spread Paso Pacífico’s mission of empowering people and reviving ecosystems in Nicaragua.
Nicaragua Staff
Liza González, Msc
Country Director
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.
Julie Martínez
Education Specialist
julie@pasopacifico.org
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.
Maritza Rivera C, MSc.
Entrepreneurship Project Coordinator & Environmental Leadership for Geotourism
maritza@pasopacifico.org
Maritza has a degree in Ecology, an MA in Economics with emphasis on investment projects in the Central American University (UCA). She has over 20 years experience in planning and management of natural resources, environment and rural development, preparation of environmental impact studies, population resettlement processes and social equity. Maritza, was Director of Environmental and Social Impact of the Millennium Challenge Account (2006-2011), prior to this post (1999-2006) served as Environmental Officer USAID (United States Agency for International Development). She spent ten years at MARENA (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources) serving as Head of Public Use Program, Director of Masaya Volcano National Park and Project Director in 4 protected areas of the Pacific-Nicaragua. Recently she has been a consultant for UNDP, LuxDev. and Chemonics on issues of adaptation to climate change and food security.
Claudia Nohemi Perla Medrano
Primate Conservation
claudiaperla@pasopacifico.org
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.
Martín Lezama, Msc
Conservation Scientist
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.
Agroforestry & Watershed Restoration Coordinator – Marcela Lucía Gutiérrez Carrillo
Jaguar Conservation Program Manager – Marvin Elias Chévez Morales
Transportation Coordinator – Meyer Antonio Rodríguez
Office & Administrative Manager – Claudia Lucía Torres García
Graphic Designer – Jesús Winel Ruíz Morales
Communications Coordinator – Adelayde Rivas
Meliponiculture Program Manager – Marcos Antonio Calero Pérez
Ornithologist and Bird Conservation Program Manager – Marlon Wilfredo Sotelo Reyes
Amphibian and Bat Conservation Specialist – Milton Ñamendy
Spider Monkey Sanctuary Manager – Jarinton (Harrington) Javier García Paz
Parrot Conservation
Christian Bonilla
Mercedes Peñalba
Fisheries Conservation
Health Care
Eyda Torrez (dentist)
Forest Rangers
Hector Luis Espinoza Acevedo
Jose Francisco Vanegas Cortez
Jose Felipe García Mendez
Carlos Jose Chavez García
Turtle Rangers
Felix Pedro Reyes Yubanks
Erick Arturo Guido Vanegas
Jairo Luis Coronado Alemán
Yorlin de Jesús Vargas Collado
Eliéser Antonio Valle Delgadillo
Iraldo Sánchez
Marcos de Jesús Pizarro
Women’s Turtle Nursery
Maura Antonia Martínez
Liessi Lisseth Calero Jiménez
Darling Idalia Delgado Jiménez
María del Carmen Rodríguez Gutiérrez
Yazmina de Fátima Flores
Elena Yajaira Vargas Martínez
Karen Lacayo
Associated Scientists and Professionals
Conservation Scientist – Stephanie Spehar, PhD
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
sehagell@gmail.com
Suzanne completed her Ph.D. with Paso Pacífico and the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University. Her dissertation used genetic techniques to understand how the endangered Central American spider monkeys interact with the fragment dry tropical forests of the Paso del Istmo. Suzanne found that the monkeys rely on forest restoration and protection to persist in Nicaragua. Suzanne has volunteered for Paso Pacífico for several years training young Nicaraguan biologists, making maps, and participating in primate monitoring activities.
Richard Joyce
Richard is a recent college graduate interested in ecology, sustainable agriculture, and the intersections of nature and culture. He grew up surrounded by tropical forest in Monteverde, Costa Rica and received his BA in Environmental Studies and Spanish from Bowdoin College. In the past, Richard has translated web content for Paso Pacifico, and in the dry season of 2014 he helped advance our meliponiculture initiatives. He now helps contribute to our blog and grantwriting. Thanks Richard for your hard work!
Board of Directors
2017 Board of Directors
Lotte Roache – President
Retired non-profit professional
Lotte Roache was born and raised in Germany and immigrated to the United States over 20 years ago. Her expertise lies in Event Planning and Coordinating and she worked most recently for a non-profit organization. She currently volunteers for different organizations including a school dedicated to educate homeless and at-risk students, an institution which delivers food and support to men, women and children affected by AIDS or cancer and a non-profit which recycles flowers from events and businesses and delivers the re-purposed arrangements to hospitals, senior homes and hospice center.
Gian Marco Palazio – Secretary
President, Café Las Flores, Nicaragua
Gian Marco is President of CASCO Safety Group (Central America Safety Company), the leading Central American distributor of industrial safety, public safety and rescue equipment. He is President of Café Las Flores, Nicaragua’s leading integrated specialty coffee brand from plantation to retail, a Rainforest Alliance Certified product. Café Las Flores is part of Agora Partnership’s Accelerator Program. He directs other companies in the eco-tourism, handicraft export, and real estate industries.
Gian Marco is a CALI (Central American Leadership Initiative) Fellow from the Aspen Institute and part of the Aspen Global Leadership Initiative.
He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1997. Since then, he completed the Entrepreneur’s Organization’s EO/MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program, and multiple INCAE executive programs.
He currently resides in Managua with his wife Marcela and three children.
Juan Marco Alvarez
Executive Director, BCSD-El Salvador
Juan Marco Alvarez has more than 20 years experience in sustainability, conservation management and green growth issues. He has a Masters degree in Business Administration and Sustainable Development from INCAE Business School in Costa Rica.
From 2009-2011, he worked for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Geneva, Switzerland, as Global Thematic Program Director, and was also in charge of its Business and Biodiversity Program, where he coordinated partnerships with multinationals such as Shell, Holcim, Rio Tinto and Nestlé Nespresso and with asssociations such as the International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
Prior to IUCN, he served as Executive Director of SalvaNATURA, El Salvador’s leading conservation NGO, known for its work on national park management, as well as the implementation of good practices and sustainable certification for the coffee, sugar and tourism industries.
Juan Marco has served as Board and Steering Committee member in various international organizations, such as IUCN (2004-2008), the Union for Ethical Bio Trade based in Amsterdam (2009-2011), the Green Economy Coalition based in London (2009-2011) and the joint IUCN-WWF Program known as TRAFFIC based in Cambridge (2009-2011). Since 2010 he has been a member of the International Standards Committee of the Rainforest Alliance-Sustainable Agriculture Network.
Currently, Juan Marco is Chairman and Sustainability Advisor for ALGA Investments, a family owned company that focuses on coffee and sugar cane production and processing. He also works part time as Executive Director of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, El Salvador Chapter. In addition, he is a managing Director at Antural Partners, a corporate sustainability consulting firm, with presence in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Geneva, San Francisco and San Salvador.
Frank Joyce
Director & Instructor, EAP Costa Rica: Tropical Biology & Conservation, Monteverde Institute
Teresa Lang
Senior Policy Manager, Climate Action Reserve
Teresa Lang is responsible for managing and developing new emissions reduction project protocols, as well as the maintenance and interpretation of existing protocols for the Climate Action Reserve. Most recently, Teresa has been managing the development of the Reserve’s Mexican Ozone Depleting Substances Project Protocol, as well as the Reserve’s agricultural protocols. Prior to the Reserve, Teresa worked for Paso Pacífico, both in California and in Nicaragua, assisting in the development of new projects, developing an intern program, and managing redevelopment on the website, managing the “guías comunitarias” eco-tourism training programs in Ostional and La Tortuga, and serving as Paso Pacifico’s first (unofficial) surf ambassador. Previously, Teresa worked for the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, helping corporate and nonprofit industry leaders develop new climate change and environmental projects. Teresa earned her Masters of International Affairs, specializing in environmental policy, at Columbia University and earned her Bachelors in Political Economies from the University of California at Berkeley. Teresa is an avid surfer and loves surfing the pristine waves in Nicaragua.
Sonia Ortega
Program Director, Office of International Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation
Sonia Ortega is a native of Nicaragua. She currently works in Washington DC as Program Director in the Office of International Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation (NSF). During her 25 years at the NSF she has managed several multimillion dollar programs that span the gamut of education levels and disciplines. Before coming to the NSF, Sonia was a Research Associate at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina where she conducted research on the Ecology of Oyster Populations along the North Carolina coast. For three years, she was on leave from NSF and worked as Director of Education and International Programs at the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Office at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Sonia holds a BS degree in Biology from the University of Costa Rica, an MA in Zoology from Duke University, and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of South Carolina. Her research results focused on the Ecology of Tropical Rocky Shore Populations of Invertebrates are reported in scientific journals. She conducted research in Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile and Panama. Sonia has served as advisor and board member of education and scientific organizations in the US and abroad. In 2008 the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) presented her with the Distinguished Professional Mentor Award in recognition of her mentoring activities at the national level. In 2013 the Ecological Society of America (ESA) recognized her with the ESA Commitment to Human Diversity in Ecology Award for her outstanding contributions to increasing current and future diversity in the ecological community.
Sonia has extensive knowledge of science and engineering research and education policies and has represented NSF at national and international science and education meetings. She represented NSF at Palmer Station Antarctica. In 2012 she was selected as an Embassy Science Fellow to represent the US and the National Science Foundation at the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is a founding member of the Nicaraguan Academy of Sciences.
Diana Pritchard
Ecologist and Anthropologist, University of Sussex
Diana’s career has focussed on the diversity of knowledge, livelihood practices and global forces – in different cultural contexts – which shape human relationships to the natural world and resource use. She draws on analytical tools developed during her degrees in environmental biology and anthropology (University College London), and a doctorate in social policy (from the London School of Economics), to conduct her work at the interface of environmental and social phenomena. She has worked in research, teaching and training, and policy and project management in various countries (including the UK, USA, Belize, Spain and Mexico) for universities, NGOs and national and multilateral organisations, amongst them several United Nations agencies. She made Nicaragua her home, and that of her children, for eight years and in 2005 she returned to live in the UK, her country of origin. Diana publishes on biodiversity conservation, particularly on international policy and community based initiatives and, most recently, in the field of education for sustainabilities.
Paso Pacífico gives her a golden opportunity to channel her experiences and join a dynamic and eclectic group committed to strengthen local capacities and enhance the quality of lives and protect vulnerable ecosystems.
Derek Schlereth
Annual Giving Officer, David Suzuki Foundation
Derek Schlereth has been working in the fundraising industry for over eight years and presently manages the annual giving program at the David Suzuki Foundation, one of Canada’s largest and most respected environmental non-profit organizations. Derek is experienced with a variety of fundraising and project management including direct mail, telemarketing, donor stewardship, and monthly giving programs, as well as volunteer and vendor management. Derek’s latest project is is building a new fundraising program designed to engage, solicit, and steward middle-range donors.
Derek is passionate about environmental causes and fighting climate change. He strongly believes in involving and supporting local communities (particularly indigenous communities) in creating and implementing environmental change and is excited by this aspect of Paso Pacifico’s work.
Derek resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he braves the rainy winters as a bicycle commuter, referees minor hockey, and is completing a degree in Marketing Management at Langara College.
Christine Schmidt
Nonprofit Management and Development
Christine has combined her knowledge of non-profit organizations and her passion for wildlife and river conservation to support the creation and development of Paso Pacífico from the start. Christine has a master’s degree in non-profit management from the University of San Francisco. She currently works as a development officer for the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis. However, she makes time during the weekends to contribute to our common dream of building a wildlife corridor. Christine is also a talented nature photographer.