The station is operated jointly by the Station Manager and Field Coordinator.

Our Manager, Charlotte Foale, joined CPBS in 2007. Charlotte was born in England and has lived in New Zealand and the United States prior to moving to Costa Rica. She first visited CPBS in 2007 as a volunteer, with a plan to stay for three months, which she soon realized was not a likely timeline. She now lives in San Francisco de Tortuguero with her husband, Manuel, and her son, Emanuel. She is fluent in both English and Spanish. She oversees station logistics and day-to-day functionality. Charlotte is passionate about her position and has been a vital part of CPBS since the day she arrived. She supports the scientists who visit CPBS, has built and maintains meaningful relationships with the local community, and is a brilliant steward for the local environment.

Manuel, our Field Coordinator began work with CPBS in 2012. Manuel is a born naturalist. Having grown up in Guapiles and worked outside for most of his life, he is an expert in the local wildlife. He uses his ecological knowledge and expertise to work with interns and volunteers to maintain most of our long-term monitoring projects, helps to develop the logistics of new projects, and uses his handyman knowledge and expertise to keep the station running.

The COTERC board provides strategic oversight and oversees the management of the station.

Chair
Kymberley has known the station since its inception and joined the Board in 2007, originally in the role of Director of Conservation and Research, and now sitting as Chair. Having earned her collaborative PhD from the University of Toronto as an Environmental Anthropologist, she has carried out research on primates in southern China and Honduras. Taking the anthropological perspective, she has examined the interface between mammals, forests, and people, looking for conservation management solutions. It is her lifelong passion and work in research, conservation, and education which she brings to COTERC and their supporting role for Caño Palma Biological Station.goes here

Director of Research & Conservation
Emily joined the COTERC board in early 2020 as the Director of Research and Conservation. Since her tenure as research coordinator in 2015, Emily has maintained connections with the station while working on her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology at the University of Florida. Emily’s research interests include tropical conservation, landscape ecology, and physiology. Her Ph.D. work centered around butterfly community ecology and physiology in the Colombian Andes. Emily now works as an ecologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. She works closely with the research staff at the station and seeks out interested researchers to publish studies from Caño Palma’s robust datasets and to develop new projects to learn more about the ecology of Caño Palma. She is always hoping to return to Costa Rica to visit with giant damselflies, agami herons, and the wonderful residents and neighbors of CPBS!

Vice Chair
Nick joined the board in 2022 as the Director of Grants. He began his involvement with COTERC in 2015 when he came to Caño Palma Biological Station as a mixed-taxa intern with an intent of staying for eight weeks, but stayed on for six months, accepting a role as assistant coordinator for the sea turtle monitoring program. He returned in 2016 as a staff member for a full season as the lead sea turtle monitoring coordinator, while also supporting many other monitoring and research initiatives as time allowed. Needless to say, after nearly one and half years at Cano Palma, he viewed it as his second home and still does to this day. He has held positions with the Pennsylvania Game Commission as a whitetail deer biologist aide, as well as with the Florida Department of Agriculture ensuring regulatory compliance with pesticide use. Nick now works as a full time staff wildlife biologist at a renewable energy company supporting the responsible siting and development of solar energy and battery storage projects across the United States. He is also completing a masters degree in the School of Forests, Fisheries, and Geomatic Sciences at the University of Florida. He continues to have a strong affinity and dedication to conservation and aims to get back to Cano Palma as much as possible, while supporting it from afar in any way he can.

Director of Finance
Mitch joined COTERC in 2023 and supports the Director of Finance. He works as a spend governance analyst at Manulife Financial where his primary focus is around data analytics and reporting against HR metrics. Mitch majored in Economics and minored in Financial Mathematics during his time at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario where he grew up. His passion for the outdoors is shown through his love of soccer, hiking and back country camping in various locations across Ontario.

Director of the Raphia
Doug has been editing Raphia as a member of COTERC’s Board since 2016. Upon earning a BSc in biology from LSU, Doug promptly headed off into the marketing world. After working for Coca Cola for many years, he retired and took up cycling - long-distance cycling. Following a grueling trek covering 20,000 kilometers and 7 months, friends urged him to write a book about it. And so a book about pain came to pass. That led to a more general interest in writing and a natural progression into editing Raphia. Doug is also a volunteer at the Toronto Zoo.

Director of Data Integrity
Sarah joined the board in 2023. She visited Caño Palma for the first time in 2019 as an intern on the turtle project, returning in 2021 and 2019 as a turtle research assistant. Sarah's experiences at Caño Palma fostered her love for tropical biodiversity and ecosystems. She is currently a PhD candidate studying the effects of drought intentensification on neotropical insects. At Caño Palma, Sarah is interested in contributing to the management, organization, and preservation of COTERC's valuable long-term datasets.

Director of Web Services
Jess joined the board in 2022 as the Director of Web Services. She first visited Caño Palma as a Turtle Monitoring Intern in 2014 and returned as a Research Assistant in 2015, reveling in the rich company and tropical diversity that the station has to offer. Jess now works as a Field Scientist for an environmental consulting company in Monterey, California, where she is also completing her master’s degree in Environmental Science. She is especially passionate about tropical and coastal conservation and hopes to continue pursuing these passions in a professional setting.

Director of Strategy
Tom first visited Cano Palma in 2008 and joined the board in 2023 as the Director of Strategy. He has a DPhil in Zoology, focused on the impact of human land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem function. Tom has worked at a variety of charities, encouraging multi-national businesses and financial institutions to align their activities with the needs of people and planet. He recently founded Transition Agency, which seeks to empower medium-sized businesses to embed purpose into the core of what they do. Tom is passionate about tropical rainforests and believes their protection is essential for a flourishing society.