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| Ursula Valdez |
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| Tim Billo |
Ursula Valdez, a native of Peru, is an experienced tropical ornithologist and conservationist. She graduated from the department of Biology at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in Peru. She obtained a MSc degree in Zoology and Animal behavior at North Carolina State University studying raptor communities in Manu Biosphere Reserve.
Ursula recently graduated from the University of Washington with a PhD in Biology studying the ecology and habitat use of Forest-falcons in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon. She worked in Peru and Panama as a raptor biologist and was the Director of the Neotropical Environmental Education Program of The Peregrine Fund. She has conducted ornithological research and conservation projects in Peru, Ecuador, Spain and the US. She has been an instructor in tropical ecology courses in Peru and Costa Rica. Recently she started a series of field courses in ornithology for Latin American students. She is also a committed conservationist and active in finding ways to lower our ecological footprint.
Tim Billo received his B.A. in biology from Williams College in western Massachussetts. His undergraduate research focused on the ecology of the forest flora of that region. Tim completed his PhD in the Biology Department at the University of Washington. His dissertation research took him to the tropical rainforests of Panama and Costa Rica, where he studied the behavior and biogeography of two species of birds which hybridize where their ranges meet and overlap. He is also involved with the description and conservation of closely related subspecies of the same birds isolated on nearby coastal islands. Tim has also developed and led community-based environmental education programs in Costa Rica and Panama.
Tim is currently on the faculty of the University of Wasington Environmental Studies Program. He teaches many of the core courses, in addition to a field natural history course, and a summer backpacking-based course on wilderness issues. Tim is currently certified as a Wilderness First Responder.
Last modified: 12/28/2009 12:51 PM