The start of this 2018 brought me unexpected but wonderful news. I was selected to enter CONICET (Argentina's Research Council) as a tenured Assistant Researcher.  Hopefully, within one year, I will move back to Salta, Argentina to start my research program and my family and I could not be happier. Here's to new starts!  

As we finish our class on Systematic Conservation Planning using Open Standards, I have only words to praise this cohort of students. Also, thank you Karl Didier for your continued support and wisdom and Lyn Branch for being amazing; what a privilege working with them! This year we had three outstanding groups that did not shy away from tough environmental issues. Decreasing forests fires and expansion of oil palm in Indonesia? Finding sustainable alternatives for land-use in Belize? Implementing energy alternatives for local communities in India to decrease forest degradation? These students have a plan. Congratulations!! 

Classes started and a new iteration of Conservation Planning for Biodiversity Projects in underway. This year we have a very interesting and diverse group of students. We will focus on developing conservation projects in Belize, India, and Indonesia. Here are the teams!

I am happy to share that I will be an Adjunct Lecturer for the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. I will be a Co-instructor with the amazing Dr. Lyn Branch and we will be teaching Systematic Planning for Biodiversity Conservation Projects. I will soon open a new section on this web site dedicated to all the course materials, so stay tuned. 

I defended my Dissertation, finished all requirements and I am ready to graduate on August 5th 2016. It has been an amazing ride full of learning experiences, new skill sets, and friends. I want to thank every one that helped me through these years.  

The power of the internet never stops to amaze me. It has been a little over a year since I created this web site. Since then, it received over 5000 visitors from some of the most exciting parts of the world. Take a look!

Approximate locations of individual visitors. Size of the circle represents the number of visitors in each location. I am humbled by the amount of traffic seen in my web site and I take this opportunity to send my best wishes and a happy new year!!

Last Friday, the TCD-LATAM-sponsored Field Research Clinic took place in the gorgeous domains of Smathers Library at UF. Students who have returned from the field presented on their results in a poster-session type of event. There were well over 100 people including close to 30 faculty/staff/visiting scholars and the variety of themes covered was stimulating.

I figured that this was my chance to try-out a new poster design that I've been thinking about. After all, you will hardly ever see a more suitable crowd than the TCD community to bounce-off new ideas.  

The poster was composed of three main areas: 

• A primary center area where I put what was arguably the most relevant information; i.e., The problem and Preliminary data.
•  A secondary area on the left, where I put the introduction in few words.
• A third area on the right, where I placed a discussion space, where people could write down ideas, suggestions of comments about trends in my data.

The concept behind the design of this poster was to re-organize the information that I would generally put (Introduction, hypothesis, methods, results, and discussion) so that the main piece of information was right at the center with very few words. If the reader was interested, then he/she could move their attention to other parts of the poster (i.e., Introduction and main questions). Some poster sections were left out (Methods and the classic discussion section). I wanted to bring out a notion that a wonderful professor once told me "posters are about having people to talk to you". 

Overall, the experiment was a success. Most importantly, I got wonderful ideas and comments that people wrote down on my poster. I was surrounded with smart people who had lots of different experiences and I'm happy the poster was able to capitalise on that. I was also fortunate enough to win a prize, so thanks TCD-LATAM!

I also want to acknowledge  TCD and The Rufford Small Grant foundation for their support of my research.

There are a few things I need to remember for next time:

• Bring sharpies instead of pencils. Pencils are great for field work but suboptimal for this task.
• Buy a helium balloon and put it on my poster. That way, when people ask me "where's your poster?" I can reply: "just follow the balloon".
• Always have a notebook close by to write down suggestions by Emilio Bruna. Emilio talks fast and walks even faster. If you think you are going to remember all of his suggestions, you are wrong...so write them down! (thank you Emilio for this suggestions!!)

Next steps? I'll try this design at a larger meeting and see what happens. Stay tuned!

We now know some of the guests what will be giving a plenary talks or that will present a case study!
This list includes:

Avecita Chicchon (Moore)
Claudio and Suzana Padua (IPE, Brazil)
 Philip Fearnside (INPA)
Claudia Stickler (Earth Innovation Institute)
Miguel Pinedo (Columbia University)
Sonia Canavelli (INTA, Argentina)
Zoraida Calle (CIPAV, Colombia);
Luis Suarez (SocioBosque, Ecuador -CI)  and Max Lascano (Min. Environ.)
Many, many more...!

Click here for more details!

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