Faculty biography - Christopher Vaughan
Christopher Vaughan is a man with a mission - to ensure the quality of life for all the Earth's inhabitants. He has dedicated his life to understanding and protecting our natural environment, and to sharing his passion for grassroots environmentalism with new generations of students. His work on behalf of our environment has taken many forms: researcher, teacher, facilitator, volunteer, organic farmer, and activist.
After graduating from Grinnell College, Chris joined the Peace Corps and was posted in Costa Rica, where he worked with that country's fledgling national parks department. In this role, he was instrumental in creating several new national parks, including the world-renowned Corcovado and Chirripó parks. As a teacher and scholar at the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica , Chris taught several generations of students and conducted valuable research focusing on the interrelationship between biodiversity and humans to promote their coexistence. He co-founded Costa Rica's International Institute for Conservation and Management of Wildlife, Latin America's first graduate training program in wildlife management. Working with local communities, he also helped found a regional conservation organization for protecting the threatened scarlet macaw.
For fifteen years, he served as science coordinator of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest's Costa Rica Field Studies program, focusing on advising ACM students on field research. Of his 100 scientific publications, 25 have been coauthored with ACM students based on their Spring research projects. In addition, Dr. Vaughan has published eight books, including Corcovado National Park: Management and Development Plan, Wildlife in Mesoamerica: Diagnostic and strategy for its conservation (with E. Carrillo), and Ecology and management of white-tailed deer in Mexico and Costa Rica (with M. Rodriguez). After thirty years in Costa Rica, Chris returned to the United States to pursue a doctoral degree in land resources. After completing his degree, he began coordinating the Wisconsin-Costa Rica Chocolate Initiative (Milwaukee Public Museum-UW-Madison grant from USDA), which studies biodiversity in cacao agroecosystems and helps small farmers in Costa Rica produce and market fair-trade organic cocoa beans without damaging the surrounding rainforest. He also spent time educating new generations of environmentalists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in their Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, by teaching the courses Extinction of Species and Ecosystem Management. For his efforts in neotropical conservation and education, in 2006 Dr. Vaughan was awarded an honorary degree from Grinnell College at Commencement.