Collaborators

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Index of Linguistic Diversity	David Harmon, M.Sc., is co-Principal Investigator on Terralingua’s Index of Linguistic Diversity project. Dave is Executive Director of The George Wright Society, an association of parks and protected areas professionals. He is responsible for overseeing the Society’s operations, including publishing The George Wright Forum and planning the Society’s biennial conferences.Continue reading → Jonathan Loh, M.Sc., is co-Principal Investigator on Terralingua’s Index of Linguistic Diversity project. He works on measuring and monitoring trends in global environmental change, natural resource use and biodiversity. He has worked since 1994 for WWF International, and is an Honorary Research Associate at the Institute of Zoology, part of the Zoological Society of London. Continue reading →
Biocultural Diversity in Education	Carla Paciotto, Ed.D., is currently an associate professor at Western Illinois University, where she teaches about culture, language and education in the contexts of indigenous and immigrant populations. Her research centers on language maintenance and shift and language education policy and planning, focusing on the role of native language instruction in the revitalization of endangered and lesser used languages. Her studies span from Mexico to the U.S., Italy and Slovenia. Her dissertation, “Bilingual Education for Chihuahua’s Tarahumara Children: A Study of the Contexts of an Emerging Program,” won the National Association of Bilingual Education Dissertation Award and the Italian Award for Studies Related to Bilingualism and Multilingualism and was published in in the volume Il bilinguismo tra conservazione e minaccia. Esempi e presupposti per interventi di politica linguistica e di educazione bilingue(Franco Angeli 2004). She has recently contributed articles to the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism and Language Policy. Carla has collaborated with Terralingua on the Sierra Tarahumara project since 2007, with a focus on bilingual education for Rarámuri community, particularly women and children. Jennifer Hegarty has collaborated with Terralingua in Phase 1 of the Biocultural Diversity Education Initiative, being responsible for the development of the Initiative’s pilot curriculum module. She brought to the project her passion for the diversity of the world’s cultures, having fallen in love with anthropology at the age of five, when her parents gave her a children’s book on the different houses of the world. She studied throughout Europe and the United States, graduating with a degree in International Affairs and Anthropology. She currently resides in New York City, where held posts at The International Rescue Committee and the United Nations and is currently Impact Coordinator at Impact Branding. Jen is strongly committed to educating young minds about the value and beauty of biocultural diversity.
Biocultural Diversity Conservation: A Global Sourcebook	Ellen Woodley, Ph.D., is Coordinator of Terralingua’s project “Global Source Book on Biocultural Diversity”. Ellen received her doctorate in Interdisciplinary Rural Studies from the University of Guelph in Canada. She is currently an independent consultant and has most recently worked on the integration of culture in sustainable development, researching the integration of Indigenous Peoples’ cultural practices and knowledge for food security for the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC). She worked in the south Pacific for over five years: in the Solomon Islands working on cultural affirmation projects for the provincial government, and in Papua New Guinea, where she was a botanist and was involved in collecting medicinal plants for a handbook used by medical outposts. She has also lived and worked in West Africa, has worked with First Nation communities in Canada, has conducted research in the high Arctic in Canada and in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Research interests include the integration of Indigenous Peoples’ ecological knowledge in resource management. Her dissertation was entitled “Local and Indigenous Ecological Knowledge as an Emergent Property of Complexity: A Case Study in the Solomon Islands . Publications of note are: Using Multiple Knowledge Systems: Benefits and Challenges. Chapter 5. Multiscale Assessments Volume 4 of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (eds. Capistrano, D., Samper, C.K., Lee, M.J and Raudsepp-Hearne, C.) and Cultural indicators of Indigenous Peoples’ food and agro-ecological systems, for the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), (forthcoming 2007).
Vitality Index of Traditional Environmental Knowledge (VITEK)	Stanford Zent, PhD, is Principal Investigator on Terralingua’s project “Methodology for Developing a TEK Vitality Index (TEKVI): An index of the status and trends of Traditional Environmental Knowledge”. Stanford holds a degree in Anthropology from Columbia University. For the last 16 years he has worked as a Researcher and Professor in the Anthropology Department of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research, Caracas, Venezuela. His research interests include ecological anthropology, ethnobiology, traditional environmental knowledge, biocultural conservation, and native cultures of lowland South America. He has conducted long-term fieldwork among the Piaroa, Jotï and Eñepa indigenous groups of the Venezuelan tropical forest since 1984.
Langscape	Ortixia Dilts has collaborated with Terralingua since 2008 as creative designer. Her passion for her work with Terralingua stems from her deep connection with nature and respect for native cultures. She is in charge of web development as well as of graphic design for Terralingua’s media and publications. She also serves as editor-in-chief of the e-magazine Langscape, Terralingua’s flagship publication and an emerging forum for the exploration of the many facets of biocultural diversity. Through the articles, stories and art she presents in Langscape, within an elegant sensory context, Ortixia aims to educate the minds and hearts of people about the importance and value of biocultural diversity. She is also in charge of outreach to and communications with Terralingua’s extensive network, maintains Terralingua’s Biocultural Diversity Conservation portal, and contributes to Terralingua projects, including the Biocultural Diversity Education Initiative and the Biocultural Diversity Conservation Toolkit.