~ Amazon Workshop Faculty~

The cadre of impassioned and informed professionals who serve as our workshop leaders will inspire you. They are knowledgeable and eager to share the fascinating aspects of the rainforest that motivate their own personal interests.

Dr. Lundie Spence received her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University from the School of Education. Before this she studied biology and oceanography at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Mary Baldwin College and Florida State University. After over 15 years with the NC Sea Grant College Program in Raleigh, NC, she recently joined the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium to assume the role of Director of the SouthEast Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE). Active in the National Marine Educators Association, Dr. Spence is a well-known environmental educator and has numerous certifications, honors, and grants to her credit. Join Dr. Spence in one of her most recent innovative initiatives to develop an ongoing water quality monitoring program and river deposition study of the Amazon. You will find her enthusiasm contagious!

Lynne Cherry received a B.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art and an M.A. in history from Yale University. Author of her own environmental newsletter for children, she is currently artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Teachers and nature enthusiasts alike celebrate her best-selling book, The Great Kapok Tree. Written and illustrated by Lynne Cherry, the book effectively personalizes the story of endangered rainforests in a story with a lesson and a happy ending. Her book releases, including The Shaman's Apprentice, are distributed around the world and continue to instill in children a love of and appreciation for the natural world. While demanding ecologically sound publishing practices for her own works, she is actively promoting these practices as industry standards.

Dr. Madigosky received his undergraduate degree in Natural Resources Conservation from the University of Connecticut.  He received his Masters and Doctorate degrees from Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana in Resource Conservation, Biology, and Science Education.  While in Indiana, Professor Madigosky conducted research at Indiana University in the Department of Paleobotany, studying the ecological habitats of ancient environments using plant spore systematics. Dr. Madigosky currently holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Biology/Environmental Science and Center for Education at Widener University.  Aspects of tropical biology and conservation have been his focus for nearly two decades.  As a researcher, he has been investigating the biochemical dynamics of select compounds in tropical plants and animals.  The crux of his work centers on understanding how organisms obtain chemical protection from their diets.  He also has been involved in trace metal research at the Louisiana State University Center for Excellence in Cancer Research.   Most recently, he has been compiling a detailed climatic profile of the forest near the ACTS.  He has obtained nearly one million dollars in grants over the past decade to support his research efforts along with educational programs to increase science literacy among K-16 teachers and students.

Dr. Ken Rosenberg completed his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University focusing his research on the foraging behavior of tropical rainforest birds in Peru and Bolivia. While at LSU he was involved in several expeditions to remote parts of South America before completing subsequent post-doctorate study at the Smithsonian Institution. He received a B.S. at Cornell University and M.S. at Arizona State University concentrating his early work on zoology.  He has been at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology since 1993, directing the Birds in Forested Landscapes Project, as well as other citizen-science projects involving thousands of backyard birders and having great potential for use as a teaching tool in the classroom. He is also a national leader in the Partners in Flight initiative, spearheading conservation efforts for neotropical migratory birds in the U.S., Mexico, and Cuba.

Randy Morgan holds an M.S. in entomology from the University of Wisconsin. He maintains and breeds a diverse collection of live arthropods, predominantly insects, and a small menagerie of insectivorous vertebrates and uses these to create naturalistic public education displays at the Cincinnati Zoo Insectarium.  In 2003, his work managing a Leaf-Cutting Ant Colony earned the Zoo a Significant Achievement Award issued by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. This recognition was proceeded by other awards in 1999 for Bullet Ants, in 2000 for the long-term propagation of the Peruvian Fire Stick, and two in 2001 for the long-term propagation and captive management of the Giant Water Bug.  Mr. Morgan's fascination with insects is contagious!  He dispels the common fears about these creatures, as he comments that insects are by far the safest and least dangerous animals to work with in the zoo.  Mr. Morgan led the JASON XV tam of scientists in February, 2003 during their Rainforests at the Crossroads expedition to Panama and served as a JASON X researcher in the Amazon in March, 1999.

Donna Krabill has a B.A. from the University of Florida in Elementary Education with additional certification in music (a professional harpist), early childhood, and emotionally handicapped education. Her Master¹s in Curriculum and Instruction, through National-Louis University focused on student field studies at the canopy walkway site at Myakka River State Park in Sarasota, Florida. She was selected, as one of six teachers internationally, to participate in the JASON Project expedition to the Peruvian Amazon with Dr. Robert Ballard for JASON X.  She was the founding president for the Sarasota Council for Science Educators and has served on many local and regional education committees.  Her work at Selby Gardens involves curriculum development for school field trips, summer camp, special events for children, distance learning and exhibit design.  She is widely acclaimed for an outstanding poison dart frog exhibit of nearly 100 frogs at Selby Gardens.

Dr. McGowan received a B.S. and an M.S. in zoology from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of South Florida. He is curator of the Bird and Mammal Collections at Cornell University and teaches classes in specimen preparation, field-collecting methods, the relationships of birds and neotropical canopy biology and canopy access. Previously, Dr. McGowan worked as a non-game biologist for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission and was involved in a number of independent biological studies. Although he is a broadly trained ornithologist, his main research concerns the behavioral ecology of birds, especially social behavior. He is currently studying the reproductive and social behavior of two species of crows in the Ithaca area. He is an elected member of the American Ornithologists¹ Union and former secretary of the Ornithological Societies of North America.

Dr. Meg Lowman received a B.A. with honors in biology and environmental studies from Williams College, an M.S. in ecology from Aberdeen University, and a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Sydney. Dr. Lowman specializes in canopy ecology, particularly plant-insect relationships, and her research spans over 25 years in Australia, Peru, Africa, the Americas, and the South Pacific. She has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and three books, including her most recent Life in the Treetops. Dr. Lowman recently served as Director of Research and Conservation and then Chief Executive Officer of Selby Botanical Gardens. Prior to joining Selby, she was a professor in Biology and Environmental Studies at Williams College, Massachusetts where she pioneered several aspects of temperate forest canopy research and built the first canopy walkway in North America in an oak-maple forest where she and her students studied canopy insects, plants and small mammals. Dr. Lowman has an expertise in the different techniques used for canopy research including ropes, walkways, hot air balloons, construction cranes, and combinations of these methods. She co-chaired the first and second International Conferences on Forest Canopies in 1994 and 1998. Dr. Lowman was chief scientist for the JASON X expedition to the Amazon and has been involved with other rainforest expeditions sponsored by the JASON Foundation for Education.

Dr. Bruce Rinker has a B.S. from Virginia Tech's College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources and a doctorate degree in environmental studies from Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene, NH.  His current work at the Environmental Lands Division in Pinellas County involves supervising a staff of professional, specialized, and supervisory personnel engaged in the development and implementation of long-term land management plans for county-owned environmentally sensitive properties. Prior, he was the Director of Research & Conservation at The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida. He is a National Fellow of the Explorers Club, a Switzer Environmental Fellow, and a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the board of directors for the Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies (ACTS) and sits on the editorial boards for the international periodical Selbyana and the on-line journal Action Bioscience. Dr. Rinker is a member of the New York and Florida Academies of Sciences, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Organization of Tropical Studies, the Association for Tropical Biology, the Society of Systematic Biology, the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, and many others. His scientific expeditions include trips to the Galápagos Islands; into the High Andes of Ecuador and Peru; the Amazon Basin of Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru; the rainforests of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Costa Rica, French Guiana, and Australia; the Congo Basin of Cameroon, West Africa; the deserts and reefs of the Middle East; and other places. He has participated twice on the French-sponsored international Radeau des Cimes mission with its colorful dirigible, treetops raft, and sled. Dr. Rinker has won numerous awards in the academic and scientific community as well as being published in various journals and periodicals. 

Dr. Will Sponholtz received a Ph.D. in organic synthetic chemistry/natural products chemistry from Dartmouth College, a M.S. in organic synthetic chemistry from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a B.S. in chemistry from Pfeiffer College.  In addition, Dr. Sponholtz has studied natural products chemistry and has done research at the University of Hawaii.  Dr. Sponholtz currently teaches chemistry and does research at Cushing Academy. His research interests include the isolation and structural determination of bioactive secondary metabolites; i.e., drug discovery.  Dr. Sponholtz is working with indigenous healers and Shaman located in the Peruvian rain forest to isolate novel natural products that will have potential medicinal value.  Dr. Sponholtz has authored various publications in scientific journals reporting novel, facile synthetic routes to previously unreported compounds.  In addition to his teaching and research interests, Dr. Sponholtz coaches soccer, skiing, and tennis at Cushing Academy.

D.C. Randle has a B.S. in Biology from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.  He has Special Education Certification from St. Cloud State University and is currently working on his Masters of Education with a science emphasis in classroom instruction at St. Marys University in Minneapolis, MN. Prior to his current work at St. Francis High School, Mr. Randle taught at-risk students at Crossroads School n St. Francis. He was selected, as one of six teachers internationally, to participate in the JASON V expedition to the Belize with Dr. Robert Ballard. He has held numerous board and teacher advisory positions with environmental and education organizations.  He is an active fundraiser for several of the cultural exchange and assistance programs in the Amazon. Further, he has participated in ongoing herbivory and leaf-tagging research and as a Teacher Researcher with the Amazon Rainforest Workshop over the last several years.

Mr. Meerman completed an M.S. in biology and ecology at the University of Wageningen after his undergraduate work in literature at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. His early interest in research focused on insect-plant relationships. He moved to Belize in 1989 to manage a 20,000-acre nature reserve in the Corozal District. In 1992 he joined the Board of Directors as the scientific advisor of Slate Creek Preserve in the Cayo District and has become well known in the Belizean conservation community for his studies of biodiversity. Mr. Meerman has conducted a number of environmental impact assessments in Belize and published numerous scientific articles on European, African and Arabian zoology. He is the co-owner Green Hills, a butterfly study and breeding center, and is completing the first field guide to the butterflies of Belize.