Luis Antonio Ramos
University of Florida
Natural Resources and Environment / El Salvador
Research Topic: The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor: Effects of communication Processes on Perceptions and Policies of Natural Areas

I was born in Mexico City, but raised in San Salvador, El Salvador, where most of my family is from and still lives. I spent from kindergarten to junior year in high school in San Salvador and finished my senior year in San Antonio, Texas. Before starting my veterinary medicine degree in Mexico City, I traveled through Europe with a couple of friends during the summer of 1980. This trip became a milestone in my life. Life took me back to Mexico City where I lived from 1980 to 1988. Then I moved to Davis, California for a year where I did a veterinary residency at UC Davis Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Armed with some quasi-job experience we returned to El Salvador. My first real job was as a sales manager for a distribution company of veterinary products. Even though I enrolled into some MBA courses to learn the business system, after three years I realized that I had no heart for sales. In the meantime, I participated with some friends in the foundation of a local wildlife conservation organization that we called FUNZEL (Zoological Foundation of El Salvador). Ever since I was a kid I loved wildlife, but never thought I could dedicate to wildlife for a living. One day, there was a Fulbright scholarships add on the newspaper. I thought "if I ever go back to school it will be to study wildlife? the worst case scenario is that I come back to be the same old veterinarian". So I applied and went to New Mexico State University at Las Cruces. The period of my life in New Mexico (1993-1995) became another milestone. I got my Master of Science in wildlife management, my first child was born in Las Cruces, and we made everlasting friends from what truly is the land of enchantment.

Once I had my MS, I worked for a brief period at the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in Baja California Sur, Mexico, in a Pronghorn conservation project. In 1996 we moved back to El Salvador. I became the director and veterinarian of FUNZEL's Wildlife Rescue Center. That job opened several opportunities to work as a freelance consultant on wildlife, natural resources and environmental issues in general. In 2000, my second son was born and I was hired as the Salvadorian liaison officer for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC) project. This project was about promoting the interconnection of natural protected areas with biological corridors throughout Mesoamerica. This project introduced me to the world of environmental politics. I participated in different regional and global environmental meetings such as the United Nations Conventions on Biodiversity and Climate Change. The difficulties I saw in the communication process among scientists and politicians during my time in the MBC project, lead me to pursue a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary ecology, which I started in 2003 at the University of Florida under another Fulbright scholarship. I just passed my qualifying exams and I am ready to start my research evaluating the effects of the communication processes of the MBC project on public perceptions and policies of natural areas.