Carlos is the Project Director of SERVIR-Amazonia. He is an experienced international development professional who has worked on major international programs, primarily funded by USAID, providing overall program management, financial and administrative supervisory services, actively involving project stakeholders, and assuring general compliance of technical, financial and administrative client requirements.

Brian is a multidisciplinary scientist with expertise in ecology, plant ecophysiology and remote sensing. His most recent work focuses on predictive geospatial modeling, deforestation and forest degradation monitoring, and bridging the gap between science and policy in Latina America. For several years, he served as the coordinator of the MRV and national forest monitoring system for REDD+ of the Ministry of the Environment of Peru.

Natalia is a scientist with experience in the development and application of geospatial and hydroinformatics technologies. In recent years, she has served as coordinator of projects related to drinking water, facilitating the implementation of knowledge transfer, monitoring and evaluation systems. Natalia has a PhD in Hydroinformatics from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.

Katia is the Agreement Office Representative. Working at USAID Amazon Regional Program Office as a Project Management Specialist she is in charge of supporting, coordinating and monitoring the technical, financial and administrative aspects of the SERVIR Amazonia activity from USAID’s side.

Vanesa’s research interests include the applications of optical and radar data for land use monitoring, food security, and biodiversity in Latin America. Her current work assesses how water quality in Belize may be affected by projected land cover and climate change impacts. She is also involved with the SAR-CBC project, which seeks to build capacity in Latin American partner institutions to use SAR data to carry out hazard monitoring. 

Jim’s research focus is hydrologic modeling and analysis specializing in geographic processing and visualization. As a principal member of BYU’s Environmental Modeling Laboratory (EMRL) he led the initial development of the Watershed Modeling System (WMS) now used by public and private agencies worldwide. In 2007 EMRL was successfully migrated to the private company Aquaveo (www.aquaveo.com). Jim has worked extensively in Latin America, leading capacity building activities, most recently under AmeriGEOSS of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), and is an active participant of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) in promoting free and open source tools for water data sharing (worldwater.byu.edu). 

Stephanie Spera’s research focuses on using remotely-sensed data, spatial statistics, climate models, and other tools to analyze trade-offs in ecosystem services. Much of her previous work has focused on mapping and understanding the socioeconomic drivers and consequences of land-clearing for large-scale agricultural expansion the eastern Amazon/Cerrado boundary in Brazil. She is excited to bring her expertise to this SERVIR-Amazonia team and focus on the Western Amazon.

Jenny, a Colombian national, works at CIAT and offers financial and administrative support to SERVIR-Amazonia. Jenny holds a Bachelor in Business administration from Universidad de Santiago, Colombia; and a Bachelor in Information and Technology Systems from Universidad del Valle, Colombia.

Silvia, a Colombian national, studied Systems Engineering. Her taste for Geography motivated her to grow professionally in the area of Geographic Information System (GIS) at the master’s level as well as in the subject of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). Additionally, Silvia has a keen interest in the dissemination of projects results, which has led her to work with data management, basic cartography, storymap and Cloud-based GIS platforms like ArcGIS Online.

Mayesse has over 7 years of experience working on soil and water management in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa (Kenya and Ethiopia), and India. She holds a PhD in Soil Science through a joint program between the Federal University of Lavras/Brazil and Purdue University/United States. Has experience on mapping and modeling landscape-soil-hydrology relationships to develop quantitative predictable patterns reflected by soil geomorphology and on applying those relationships to support decision-making regarding soil and water management, soil remediation (heavy metals), land use planning, and landscape restoration.

Kim is from Guyana whose studies include physical and human geography, ecologic studies, geology, GIS, and remote sensing. She also has experience with Python and Javascript Coding, and Google Earth Engine (GEE). Kim will be working at the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute of Guyana (NAREI), Guyana, and closely with SERVIR-Amazonia to co-develop a GEE based mangrove monitoring platform.

David has been trained as an environmental scientist with expertise in landscape ecology, ecosystem ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, ecosystem modeling, natural hazard modeling, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis. He has used these skills to conduct research primarily at the landscape level in a variety of systems.

Karis is an environmental scientist with expertise in ecology, statistics, remote sensing and GIS, and urban planning. Most recently her work has focused on monitoring land-use and land cover changes using, collaborative development of remote sensing-based decision support tools, building capacity for generating activity data for REDD+ and greenhouse gas inventories, assessing ecosystem services, and scenario planning. She has been managing the co-development of the regional land cover monitoring system with the SERVIR Mekong and Hindu Kush Himalaya hubs.

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Crystal is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology specialist graduated from the University of Arizona with experience on applied science project design and management. Among her areas of expertise there are geospatial tools and softwares such as ArcMap, ArcPro, QGIS, Github/Git and Python, among others.

Andrea holds a master’s degree in Earth System Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She is involved in the Mangrove monitoring project in Guyana by providing project coordination and technical/scientific support on capacity building for the prospective development of a tool for mangrove mapping and monitoring in Guyana. Support on trainings focused on geospatial analyses and algorithms using Optical and SAR datasets, Jupyter Notebooks, and Google Earth Engine. Among her areas of expertise there are key ones, such as Geospatial analysis, Remote sensing, Cloud based remote sensing and modelling, Image processing, and Machine learning.

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Isabel is a project coordinator of the Climate and Agriculture Supply Chain Initiative of IMAFLORA. Working at IMAFLORA since 2017, she focuses on governance issues of sustainable landscapes, monitoring, verification, and certification system at forestry and agriculture, natural capital studies. As a social auditor and FSC member, she works with gender and indigenous people issues.

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Felipe is a geoprocessing analyst at IMAFLORA. His work is about developing and maintaining spatial databases to help with analysis and modeling frameworks to identify possible synergies between agriculture production and nature conservation in Brazil. He also works with full-stack web development to communicate the results of the spatial analysis on IMAFLORA’s platforms.

With a degree in Social Communication, specialized in Strategic Marketing and Business Administration, Priscila Mantelatto has extensive experience (24 years) in Communication Management and currently coordinates the communication area of Imaflora, developing communication strategies, promotional actions, campaigns, disclosures, management and positioning of the Institute’s branding, event organization and content production. Supervises the relationship with the media, in addition to the management of social media, web and coordination of the entire audiovisual production of the institute.

Carmen holds a PhD in Biological Sciences with a specialty in vegetation and biogeography. Her experience lies in producing and managing information on biodiversity to support its planning processes, management and conservation policies. Carmen handles methods and products for classification, mapping and evaluation of ecosystems at the national level and throughout Latin America. She has experience with georeferenced tools for evaluating the adaptation of ecosystems to climate change, quantitative analysis of threats and monitoring of conservation objectives.

Lorena is a Geographical and Environmental Engineer. During the last years she has worked in the automation of processes for the monitoring of forest dynamics, integrating artificial intelligence and teledetection, using SAR and UAV data together with passive sensors to support sustainable forest management. He is currently working on the development of services for CIIFEN.

Ana María is the communications coordinator for Fundación EcoCiencia and is a journalist with a master’s degree in strategic communications. She has more than 15 years’ experience working in NGOs and international organizations in Colombia and Ecuador. She has developed topics in social marketing, knowledge management and institutional journalism. As part of the EcoCiencia team, she devises and implements communication strategies and communication inputs for projects and programs, both nationally and internationally, as well as institutional communication plans and strategies.