Costa Rica: Faculty

Lexi Weintraub, Interim Director of Leadership Programs at Brown University, has been involved in education and academic research for ten years. She has served as a research assistant with Brown University, the University of Chicago, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Her most recent position in Veracruz, Mexico with Iowa State University, had her climbing trees to conduct experiments in the forest canopy. Lexi taught High School science at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago and facilitated many outdoor and service retreats. She enjoys biking and served on the Board of Working Bikes Cooperative, a Chicago-based non-profit that diverts bikes from the waste-stream and distributes them to partner organizations across the globe. She has worked with the Leadership Institute for seven years, directing the Brown Environmental Leadership Laboratory: Rhode Island for four. She has a B.A. in Biology from Brown University.

Dr. Jeff Klemens is an independent biologist based out of Philadelphia. He has worked in the ACG since 1998, when he began his graduate studies. His Ph.D. was completed in 2003 at the University of Pennsylvania where he worked under the supervision of Dan Janzen and Brenda Casper. He was awarded an NSF graduate fellowship and worked for two years at the University of Minnesota before returning to Philadelphia. His scientific work has focused on regeneration processes in tropical dry forest. He is also the founder of InvestigadoresACG, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting research and teaching in the ACG, and to making the results of scientific research available to biodiversity managers. He has developed and taught field course in the ACG for the last 12 years and has introduced approximately 250 students from Illinois Wesleyan University, Wilkes University, Philadelphia University, and Stevenson High School to the biodiversity and conservation challenges on display in the ACG.

Dr. Randol Villalobos Vega is a Research Fellow in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Technology in Sydney Australia, in the Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change cluster. He is currently studying the ecophysiology of trees in ground water dependent ecosystems and their responses to climate change. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Villalobos conducted research (dissertation- University of Miami) in Brazil and Florida on water table and nutrient dynamics in Neotropical savannas and wetland ecosystems. Randol is from Costa Rica and has always been an avid explorer and outdoorsman. He has extensive experience with the local flora and fauna as a result of these adventures which were further expanded upon as a student at the University of Costa Rica where he completed an honors thesis on the ecophysiology of the dry forest. He has extensive knowledge in tropical ecology and evolution, biodiversity, plant physiology, hydrology, environmental science, conservation, and wilderness exploration and is excited to facilitate a deeper understanding between natural habitats and human communities in his home country and beyond.

Dr. Sybil Gotsch is currently a Research Associate in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire. She begins as an Assistant Professor of Biology at Franklin and Marshall College in the Fall of 2012. Sybil is a tropical ecologist who has worked extensively in Costa Rica and elsewhere in Latin America. She spent eight years conducting research in Costa Rica with Harvard University and then while conducting her dissertation research at SUNY, Stony Brook. Dr. Gotsch’s area of expertise lies in understanding how tropical forests respond to stress and climate change. She is also interested in the interconnectedness of tropical forest ecosystem services and human land use. Dr. Gotsch taught with the Brown Environmental Leadership Lab: Rhode Island in the summer of 2011. She finds mentoring young people incredibly rewarding, and is especially interested in using field-based learning activities in her teaching.