Makensie Brown, Buena Vista University BA, Spanish and Graphic Design and Visual Communiations, is the General Operations Manager for the Chijnaya Foundation. Upon completing her undergraduate studies, Makensie moved to Latin America where she worked with Habitat for Humanity in both Guatemala and Chile, supporting the organization with communications, volunteering programs, and resource development. She collaborates with board members and the team in Peru to ensure the success of community projects. 

Kathryn S. Oths (PhD, Case Western Reserve University) is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama.  Social justice and the well-being of indigenous populations have been Kathy’s abiding interests since she served as a VISTA Volunteer on the Navajo Reservation in 1980.  Starting with a stint as an archaeological fieldwork assistant in Junin for Dr. John Rick (Stanford) in 1982, she has spent many years in the highlands of Peru carrying out medical anthropological research. She is author of numerous journal articles on the interrelationships among political economy, health, and climate change in the northern Sierran hamlet of Chugurpampa.  Kathy is deeply concerned with the survival of traditional medicine, leading to the release in 2019 (Documentary Educational Resources) of her 2-film set The Last Bonesetter: Encounters with Don Felipe, and, Así Sobrevivimos: Getting by in a Changing Climate as well as an edited volume on manual medicine worldwide.

Elizabeth Klarich is an anthropological archaeologist (PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara) who has directed research projects in the Lake Titicaca Basin for nearly two decades. Her primary research focus is Pukara, which was an early population centers during the Late Formative period (200 BC- AD 200). Pukara is located in the town of Pucará, which remains an important center for regional markets and pottery production and also hosts daily tourist groups visiting the archaeological site and museum. Liz’s newest project is a study of pottery production, which features a community-based investigation of modern practices and a digital archiving project. In 2009, Liz joined the anthropology department at Smith College where she teaches archaeology classes on South America, food, and museum studies. In 2019, she joined the board of the Chijnaya Foundation and looks forward to working with the education program and efforts to support local potters.

Dan F. Bauer, PhD, Anthropology, the University of Rochester; Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Lafayette College and Founder of the Lafayette College Technology Clinic Program. The Tech Clinic program engages interdisciplinary teams of students and faculty in solving problems for a wide variety of entities: hospitals, businesses, NGOs and communities in the United States. Dan’s introduction to anthropology came as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru’s Aymara region. He taught English at the Universidád Técnica del Altiplano in Puno and auto mechanics at the International Labor Organization trade school in Chucuito, where he also set up a weaving cooperative. He has done extensive research through living for extended periods in rural communities in Ethiopia and México.

Judy Bauer is a retired Operations Manager from Hewlett-Packard who spent much of her professional career overseeing continental and international manufacturing, order processing, and distribution of goods. With almost thirty years of experience in the corporate world, she is well versed in fundraising and technical skills in the area of computers. She is also a noted watercolorist with a fine tuned artist’s perspective. She has notable international experience, and has a deep appreciation and commitment to the people of the Peruvian altiplano.

Ralph Bolton, founding president of The Chijnaya Foundation, served three years as a Peace Corps volunteer living in Quechua communities in the region where the Foundation operates. He is an applied anthropologist with a PhD from Cornell University. His dissertation was based on an additional two years of living in an Altiplano community. Bolton is emeritus professor of anthropology at Pomona College where he taught for 42 years. He has had a lifelong concern for ways to reduce extreme poverty in rural Andean communities. His published contributions to the understanding of Andean cultures and his humanitarian work have been recognized with honorary doctorates from the National University of the Altiplano in Puno, Peru and the San Cristobal de Huamanga National University in Ayacucho, Peru and by major awards from the American Anthropological Association, the National Peace Corps Association, and the National University of Trujillo, Peru.

J. David Cajo Cosavalente is a lawyer by profession who graduated from the Andean University of Cusco, and specialized in Labor Law and Social Security at the Catholic University of Peru. Together with Dr. Ralph Bolton, he is one of the founding members of the Pro-DIA Association (2010), the same one that has inspired him to work in the field in social projects of rural development in the high Andean communities. He currently works as Executive Director of the NGO Pro-DIA Association, coordinating and executing the different projects and programs with the rest of the work team.

Carla Dahl-Jørgensen is professor in social anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), since 2003. Her research interests are in the field of organizational and business anthropology, working life, labor migration and work environment. She has done fieldwork in Norway and Mexico, in urban and industrial contexts. Prior to her professorship at NTNU, she worked as an applied researcher at SINTEF in Norway (1993- 2003), working with intervention projects for a healthier working environment. She joined the board of the Chijnaya Foundation in 2019 and is looking forward in participating in the development projects together with the community members of the Andean Highlands in Southern Peru.

Photo: Ole Morten Melgård

Robert O. Frost (University of South Alabama with BS in Biochemistry).  Robert Frost is a US Navy Veteran, and earned a Physicians Assistant degree/License from the Navy School of Medicine.  He worked in medicine in the early years of his career; he now has over 35 years of hospitality work and hotel ownership experience.  Robert Frost is a founding member of the Chijnaya Foundation and served as its treasurer from 2005-2020.

Kevin Healy received his BA in Government from the University of Notre Dame, his Masters in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University and his Ph.D. in Development Sociology from Cornell University. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Lake Titicaca Region of Peru and also worked with the Catholic University of Paraguay as a social science advisor on a contract with Georgetown University. For several decades Healy has been a grant officer of the Inter-American Foundation, a small public financed foreign aid agency, where he has specialized in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. He has also funded grassroots development projects in Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. Healy has also taught on Latin American grassroots development and indigenous social movements as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, George Washington University, American University and the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.

Roland S. Moore, PhD, Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, Senior Research Scientist.  With over twenty-five years of National Institutes of Health-funded research among diverse populations, he works as an applied  anthropologist at a multidisciplinary public health non-profit, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation’s Prevention Research Center in Berkeley, California, which he has directed since 2016.  His research in rural Greece and the Western US  has focused on economic change and social, cultural and policy influences on health-related behavior, especially among youth and young adults.

John Rouse, MS in agricultural economics from The University of Wisconsin, Madison. Following two years active duty as an Ensign and Lt(jg) on an LST in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, John Rouse joined the Peace Corps in 1968 and served as rural community development volunteer in Colca River Valley, Peru, an unforgettable experience that changed the course of his future career. In 1971, he rejoined the Peace Corps as a staff member serving as a regional representative in Cuenca, Ecuador 1971-72 and then as a cooperative program officer in the Dominican Republic from 1972-74.  From 1977-83, he joined the World Council of Credit Unions supporting rural credit union development activities in Latin America and Africa. In 1984 he joined the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as a Cooperatives and Rural Organisation officer, retiring after 20 years service to the FAO in 2004.  In 2005 he made his first return visit to Peru and in 2011 he joined the Chijnaya Foundation Board.

Christine M. Shelton was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Merida/Ejido, Venezuela from 1970-72.  She continued to work part time for the Peace Corps from 1972-74 as a Cross Cultural trainer.  Chris is a 1970 graduate of James Madison University and served on the JMU Foundation Board from 2010-2018. She is Professor Emerita and Past Chair of the Exercise and Sport Studies Department at Smith College where she also served as the Co-Director of the Project on Women and Social Change from 1996-2013.  Chris was the Americas Representative to the International Working Group for Women and Sport Board from 2002 thru 2014. She has been on the Board for Women Sport International (WSI) and served as Treasurer since 2012.  Additionally, Chris served as Vice President for the International Association for Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women from 1998-2004. Chris served as the Resident Director of PRESHCO study abroad program in Cordoba, Spain (2013-2015) and was the first Academic Director for PRESHCO from 2015-2016. Her recent interests and scholarship have been in the area of women’s education worldwide especially in empowerment through sport and physical activity and bridge-building between the women’s sport community and the international women’s NGO network. She is co-author of “Women on Power: Leadership Redefined.”