Fred Yikii

Fred Yikii
Forestry Education / Field Research (2017 – Present)
fyikii@bamboo4good.org

Fred Yikii is an Assistant Lecturer (since 2011) in the Department of Environmental Management – School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Makerere University. He holds a Bachelor of Community Forestry and a MSc. in Agroforestry of Makerere University. He was a fellow of Land Restoration and Sustainable Land management at the Agricultural University of Iceland in 2009.

Fred has over 10 years of teaching experience spanning fields like Environmental Communication, Landscaping and Urban Forestry, Conflict Resolution in Natural Resources Management, and Food Security. He has participated in several exhibitions showcasing forestry innovations and products to various audiences on behalf of the school and as part of his role in community outreach. His current research activities are on food security and wetland policy. Fred also has interest in Landcare activities for sustainable land management and community development.

Sarah Hamann

Sara Hamann
Social Media (2017 – Present)
shamann@pacificbamboo.org

Sara brings an interdisciplinary background in environmental science, conservation governance, research and education. She has 5 years of experience working in non-for-profit organizations in Mexico, England and the USA.

Sara has an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford, with a specialization in religion and conservation. In the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Oxford, she researched Eastern Orthodox church forests in the Northern Gondor region of Ethiopia to measure their ecological importance in an agricultural landscape. She also studied the effects of habit fragmentation on endangered hedgehogs in England and their resilience in different agricultural settings.

Sara began working with PBR in 2017 directing their social media outreach. She is particularly interested in sustainable development, human-wildlife conflict, illegal wildlife trade, responsible sourcing and climate change adaptation.

Lance Rasmussen

Lance Rasmussen, MBA
Technology (2017 – Present)
lrasmussen@pacificbamboo.org

Lance has spent his career working in a niche field where software and technology meet the world of sports and currently serves as President for CDE Software, a Seattle based company.

Lance grew up in the Pacific Northwest in a small town of Port Angeles, WA.  The area is known for its views of the Olympic Mountains and rich with hiking and diverse beauty.  He began working with computers just prior to Apple and IBM releasing their first personal computers and self studied to began creating various programs on those platforms. Later on, he helped bring a pre-Internet means of email communication called FIDO-NET to the Olympic Peninsula, which led to building websites and then joining the company that he’s now become President. During this time Lance also attended graduate school to earn his MBA and also has served as an adjunct professor teaching computer sciences.

One of Lance’s passion is photography, which the Pacific Northwest provides unlimited opportunities for subject matter. He also greatly enjoys cooking and is involved in various cooking groups around the area. He also is a certified BBQ judge through the nation’s two largest BBQ associations and serves as a volunteer for their technology needs. Another more recent passion is amateur radio operations, where he holds an Extra Class license (call sign K7LER).

Lance met Jonathan at the West Seattle Amateur Radio Club and have served together as board members for the group.  He also volunteers with the Auxiliary Communications Service within the City of Seattle’s Department of Emergency Management.  He is an ARRL-accredited Volunteer Examiner as part of testing teams administering FCC amateur radio tests as well as an ARRL Volunteer Examiner Test Coordinator supervising testing sessions to new radio operators as well as operators seeking higher class levels.

He’s always been fascinated with bamboo in his younger days and even more so, with the expansion and recognition of bamboo having a great future and what it provides in its sustainability and diverse usage.

Smitha Rao

Smitha Rao, MA, MSc
Research Liaison (2015 – Present)
srao@pacificbamboo.org

Smitha brings a multidisciplinary background of urban and rural community development as well as social science research and has spent more than a decade working in academic and not-for-profit sectors in India, and more recently in North America.

In rural Maharashtra, India, she worked with communities on advancing women’s political empowerment and creation of livelihood programs for disenfranchised women. She led post disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation projects in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal focussed on rebuilding tribal leadership lost as a result of the Tsunami. As a member of Greenpeace India, she worked on strategy and design for international environmental campaigns ranging from climate change, lobbying with industry to phase out toxics, to promotion of sustainable agriculture practices. She has taught Geography at Portland State University and designed curricula at her alma mater, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, in Mumbai, India.

Smitha began work on the PBR project, Morethana Farm, in 2012 and helped organize several on and off-farm workshops, classes and farming initiatives that led to connections in the Sammamish Valley Agricultural District and beyond. She served on the board of Seattle Biochar Working Group.

Smitha continues to involve herself in socio-environmental research and has published several independent and collaborative pieces in international publications. She believes in a greener future and is particularly interested in the social justice aspects of agro-forestry and bamboo research, and in bamboo as a strategic crop for a sustainable world.

Visit Smitha’s LinkedIn Page