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Costa Rica: Field Research in the Environment, Social Sciences, & Humanities

San José & field sites, Costa Rica

Rafael Ocampo Sánchez

Areas of expertise

Ethnobotany on useful plants, Domestication of medicinal plants

Degree

  • Licenciatura in Animal Health, University of Costa Rica

Potential student research areas

  • Research on the state of conservation of medicinal plants in Costa Rica
  • Research for the domestication of useful plants
  • Ethnobotanical studies in local communities

Biography

Rafael Ocampo was born in Costa Rica, where he began his studies of useful plants with native groups. Later he continued his research the forests of tropical America. He is a researcher in CATIE in PFNB for Conservation and Development and director of the Agroecology Garden of Medicinal Plants in the Caribbean of Costa Rica, dedicated to the conservation of useful plants. For over two decades he has researched, managed and conserved Quassia amara and during the same period, served as an ACM advisor.

Costa Rica: Field Research in the Environment, Social Sciences, & Humanities

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Stephanie Jaros, Research Coordinator at Stanford University's Bipolar Disorders Clinic My ACM Costa Rica experience can best be summed up as inspirational. It was the first time I truly felt useful as a researcher, carrying out research that was bigger than me but somehow, made better by my hard work and by that of my team members. Also, I got my first true idea of just how research can go wrong and, in spite of the best-laid plans, can be taken off track by external forces. As a result, I learned the best lesson of social research- what I want to learn and what others want to teach me are often two different things, and the only way to make the best of it is to change my perspective, not that of those who are being kind enough to share their lives with me. The ACM Field Research Program is the only one I know of that truly challenges its students, and I managed to love every second of it.

—Stephanie Jaros, Research Coordinator at Stanford University's Bipolar Disorders Clinic, Costa Rica, Spring 1998

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