Angelica Almeyda Zambarano is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University where her academic advisor is Dr. William Durham. Angelica is also a graduate student researcher in Gregory Asner’s lab in the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology. Angelica graduated as a Forest Engineer from La Molina University in Lima, Peru and obtained her MA in Latin American Studies from University of Florida. Her doctoral interests are in comparing the impacts of development policies across the Amazonian tri-national frontier of Bolivia, Brazil and Peru. She has conducted research on social-economic and environmental consequences of eco-tourism in Costa Rica and continues to remain involved in forest ecology projects, including investigating nutrient cycling issues following slash/burn agriculture in the Amazon and microclimate and physiology of tropical forests in Hawaii.
Jamie Cotta is currently a PhD Candidate in the Department of Forest and Landscape at the U. of Copenhagen, looking at smallholder livelihoods and palm species use in the Amazon floodplains in Brazil. Carried out PEN study and related activities as a consultant for CIFOR and later ICRAF in 2008 – 2009. Masters work on Brazil nut regeneration in swidden fallows (ecological study) – published in Forest Ecology and Management. Through ICRAF and Amazon Initiative consortium in 2008 and 2009 I contributed to capacity building for Amazonian researchers, including the development of a series of training videos produced in Spanish to assist researchers in the use of the STATA statistical program.
Nick Hogarth is currently based at CIFOR Headquarters in Indonesia working as a consultant for LIV/PEN. Also part-time PhD at the School for Environmental Research at Charles Darwin University, the topic is ‘Forests, bamboo and livelihoods: Rural development & poverty alleviation in Guangxi, China’. Nick carried out his PEN case-study in China in 2007. Nick’s master’s research was on the sustainable management of wild-harvested bamboo, and his research interests remain focused on bamboo as a natural resource for rural development, and forest policy and practice in China.
Carsten Smith-Hall has a forestry background, including a PhD in forest policy. He is Professor in Forest and People in Developing Countries; at the Centre for Forest, Landscape and Planning at the University of Copenhagen. He has specialised in analysing trade, management and conservation of non-timber forest products, with particular emphasis on commercial utilisation of Himalayan biodiversity. Presently he is particular interested in forest-poverty relationships and forest and human health issues, e.g. what is the role of traditional medicine in maintaining and improving human health? He has been a PEN Resource Person since 2004.
He is responsible for a number of project activities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He has raised more than USD 20 million for research and teaching activities related to tropical forestry. He co-ordinates the global PhD programme “Forest and Nature for Society” (FONASO) and the joint European MSc programme “Sustainable Tropical Forestry” (SUTROFOR). He has published widely in both natural science and social science journals, and acts as reviewer for 15 international journals.
