Meet the Climate Corridors Team

We are taking action to build climate resilience for people and nature, together.

Climate Corridor is composed of a dedicated volunteer consortium, leveraging individual expertise to drive forward our mission with passion and commitment.

Jump to advisors, field partners, or collaborators & supporters.

The founder of Climate Corridors, Osa Conservation, Amazon Conservation Association, and the Andes Amazon Fund, Dr. Forsyth has dedicated his life to conservation throughout the world's tropics through extensive fieldwork, research, teaching, and more.
Among North America’s finest natural history writers, he is the author of nine books, including Tropical Nature, Portraits of the Rainforest, and more. He received his Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Harvard University under renowned biologist E.O. Wilson.

Andean Bear Project Coordinator, Conservación Amazónica - ACCA
Ruthmery Pillco is a Peruvian biologist and conservationist with extensive experience in leading conservation projects in diverse ecosystems, including rainforests and cloud forests in Costa Rica and Peru. With a master's degree in plant and fungi taxonomy, conservation, and biodiversity, Pillco Huarcaya has a strong background in conservation biology. She has held leadership roles in various conservation and research projects, and her work includes managing complex field operations, rewilding initiatives, and community engagement efforts. Her recent work includes serving as the Andean Bear Conservation Program leader and Wayqecha Biological Research Station Manager, where she focuses on Andean bear conservation and rewilding Amazonian cloud forests.

Wildlife Director, Osa Conservation
Dr. Chris Beirne is a research scientist who studies how wildlife communities respond to anthropogenic disturbance and, ultimately, the implications of such changes. He has spent over 10 years living and working in areas of extreme biodiversity (including Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru and Gabon) or the extreme cold (Canada), and contributed to > 45 scientific publications along the way.
His recent work includes leveraging next generation tracking technology and traditional field techniques to understand how scavenger communities function.
Beirne is passionate about open access science, reproducible research and doughnut consumption.

Conservation Technology Program Manager, Andes Amazon Fund
Dr. Carla Mere is a conservation biologist who has worked in the Andes Amazon region since 2013. Mere holds a P.h.D in Forest Resources and Conservation from the University of Florida, a M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from George Mason University, and a B.S. in Biology from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru. As a Peruvian with Amazonian ancestry, Mere has a strong commitment to ensure the protection of its biodiversity and human-wellbeing.

Executive Director, Osa Conservation
Dr. Andrew Whitworth a wildlife biologist and conservation ecologist who has over 12 years of experience leading non-profits & academic institutions to advance conservation science and protect tropical biodiversity. He is the Executive Director of Osa Conservation, a science-driven conservation organization with an emphasis on measuring impact. He completed his doctoral degree at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, where he investigated the conservation and biodiversity value of regenerating tropical forest systems. With more than 40 scientific publications, he is dedicated to building programs to reduce hunting pressure, to restore rainforest habitat and preserve plant and wildlife species, and to find human-friendly approaches to tackle climate change. Whitworth is a National Geogrphic Explorer.

Manu Biological Station Director, Conservación Amazónica - ACCA
Alejandro Lopera is a biologist and dung beetle ecology researcher. Lopera is a director at Manu Biological Station in the Peruvian Amazon. He is also the curator of the Dung Beetle of Colombia collection and a photography enthusiast.

Manu Biostation Lab Manager, Conservación Amazónica - ACCA
Juliana Morales is an Entomologist and bird enthusiast. Currently she is the Biodiversity and Climate Change Thomas Lovejoy Lab manager at Manu Biostation. She has more than 10 years of experience working in Colombia and the Peruvian Amazon as a consultant. Juliana’s topics of interest include vector borne diseases research projects, mostly Malaria, Dengue and Leishmaniasis. She fluently speaks Portuguese, English and Spanish.

Conservation Biologist, Conservación Amazónica - ACCA
Erin Rivera is a Conservation Biologist from Mexico interested in studying and understanding changes in biodiversity resulting from human impact and climate change. Rivera is performing the first ever long-term study of cicada ecology and biodiversity in the Amazon Rainforest, with the purpose of better understanding how this bioindicator group is related with tree species and climate.

Development & Fundraising Manager, Osa Conservation
Lucy Kleiner is a bilingual conservationist who has worked in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru to build resilience for people and nature in the face of climate change. Kleiner has a background in scientific communications; her work has been featured by National Geographic, Mongabay, US Daily, La Nacion, La Republica, and more.

Landscape Conservation Scientist, Osa Conservation
Dr. Ian McCullough is a conservation scientist and research analyst with a focus on biodiversity, ecology, geospatial data analysis and data science.
McCullough has developed unique methodologies for mapping wildlife corridors from landscape to regional scales.

Our Core Team

Mammal Project Manager, Andes Amazon Fund
Ariana Basto is a bilingual Peruvian conservation biologist interested in human-wildlife interactions in areas of high risk for conflict to inform conservation efforts. Basto monitors the mammal community of Los Amigos Biological Station and Los Amigos Conservation Concession to understand how Climate Change will impact its dynamics.

Manu Biological Station Scientific Coordinator, Andes Amazon Fund
Elena is a tropical conservation biologist with a deep interest in the anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity all over the Neotropics. She has been working in the Amazon rainforest of Peru since 2018, focusing on soil microbiology as a way to assess the damage made by illegal selective logging on the ecosystem and mercury contamination due to gold mining. She is fluent in Italian, English, Spanish and French.

Professor, Wake Forest University
Dr. Miles Silman is a Professor of Biology and the Director of Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability at Wake Forest University. Silman earned his PhD in Zoology. His research focuses on community composition and dynamics of Andean and Amazonian tree communities to understand plant-climate relationships, with a particular emphasis in distributions along environmental gradients. Silman has 27 years of experience working the western Amazon and Andes.

Advisory Committee

Research Assistant Processor, Dartmouth College
Dr. David Lutz is an environmental scientist and ecologist with a background in simulation modeling, remote sensing, and ecological economics. His research focuses on documenting and analyzing environmental change through the use of novel modern technological methods and modeling for adaptive management strategies. Lutz is the Primary Investigator of a NASA Interdisciplinary Science project that utilizes the historical satellite archive and three decades of citizen science observations to observe changes in water quality.

Affiliate Field Partners

Communications Coordinator, Osa Conservation
Ian Rock is a conservation film maker focused on telling stories of human-wildlife connections. With a background in marine and earth sciences, he uses a documentary storytelling to capture biodiversity in the face of climate change. Currently based in Costa Rica, Rock has lived and worked throughout the tropics.