Liliana Madrigal - Director of Program Operations
Liliana co-founded ACT in 1996 with Dr. Mark Plotkin. She has been working in the conservation field for over two decades, currently serving as the organization's Director of Program Operations. She travels frequently to South America to meet directly and work with ACT's indigenous partners in the Amazon, notably serving as chief liaison with shamans of the northwest Amazon. Liliana is responsible for the implementation of ACT's women's programs, which seek to build esteem, increase sustainable development opportunities and advance human rights among women of indigenous communities across Amazonia. Her initiative encouraged the formation in 2004 of the first full-fledged union of female traditional healers in the Colombian Amazon, the Asociación de Mujeres Indígenas de la Medicina Tradicional.
Early in her career, with The Nature Conservancy, Liliana served as the Director of the Costa Rica Program where she managed the Parks Campaign through which many protected areas in Costa Rica were consolidated, and new ones were created. In 1987, she helped found Conservation International and served as the Director of the Southern Central America Program, responsible for all organization activities in Costa Rica and Panama. Liliana and ACT President Dr. Mark Plotkin were 2008 co-awardees of a prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2006 Liliana was awarded the Circle of Bridge-Makers Award from the Angeles Arrien Foundation. She is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles.
A native of Costa Rica, Liliana lives in Arlington, VA with her husband Mark Plotkin and two daughters Gabrielle and Ann Lauren.
