Regeneration Field Institute Team
the year round staff that make the magic happen
LUCAS OSHUN | Director
Lucas has been working as an environmental education program developer and administrator since 2008 and he had led numerous reforestation efforts in Ecuador’s coastal tropical dry forest since 2010. Lucas has founded several environmental impact organizations including: Global Student Embassy, Regeneration Field Institute, and Los Arboleros Farm, our 70 acre bamboo and regenerative agroforestry operation in Manabi.
Currently, Lucas works as a full time supply chain consultant for Bamcore and Global Bamboo Technologies helping to develop sustainable sources of fast growing bamboo and eucalyptus fiber for structural panel fabrication. Whenever possible you will find him deep in the syntropic agroforestry fields at our farm, with his daughter on his back, pruning, checking on the health of trees, and envisioning a future of agriculture that resembles our natural forests.
RAISA TORRES | Operations DIRECTOR
Raisa Torres was born and raised in Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador where she has been an active advocate for environmental action and helped develop ecological education programs within public school systems. After studying environmental engineering at the Universidad Agraria de Guayaquil, she helped form the earthquake relief program, Bahia Beach Construction, and became RFI's Operations Manager. She ensures the logistics and coordination of our programs keeps students safe, healthy and maximizes their experience.
You may find her running, biking or swimming long distances. Raisa continues to exemplify what it means to be a powerful leader in the local and global community.
Andrés Padilla | Managing director
Andrés is an Ecuadorian agronomist and business leader with more than 20 years of experience working across agriculture, agribusiness, strategy, and sustainable development in Latin America. He holds a degree in Agronomy from Zamorano University and an MBA from INCAE Business School, where he focused on industry, technology, and sustainable development. Throughout his career, he has worked across the private and public sectors, leading agricultural programs, developing value-chain strategies, and bringing together farmers, businesses, government institutions, and other stakeholders to address complex agricultural challenges.
At RFI, Andrés brings this experience to the advancement of regenerative agriculture and agroforestry in Ecuador and Peru. He is particularly interested in how restoring soils, increasing biodiversity, and developing more resilient agricultural systems can strengthen the relationship between people and the landscapes they depend on. He believes regeneration is ultimately a collective process that combines ecological restoration, local knowledge, education, and meaningful collaboration with communities to create lasting change.
Dixon Olmedo | Farm Manager
Dixon is one of the two farm managers at Los Arboleros. Together, he and Darwin (both brothers) manage the groups of seasonal workers who help manage and harvest from our ~10 hectares of timber, turmeric and syntropic plots. Dixon grew up 5 minutes up the road, and worked in livestock and plantation agriculture operations before coming to RFI. His greatest dream is to see regenerative agriculture spread to other landholders in the area and grow the movement.
Darwin Olmedo | Farm Manager
Darwin is one of our two farm managers at Los Arboleros working with Dixon to manage year-round projects in trail building, tree pruning, harvesting and maintaining our timber, bamboo, turmeric and syntropic plots. Darwin also grew up in Pavón, 10 minutes up the road from the farm and worked seasonally with different farms for the 10 years before he came to farm. Both he and Dixon were present at the beginning in 2016 when RFI first came to Chone. His greatest dream is realize the institutes dreams of a full sized food forest with canopies filled with fruit and sustainably produced wood.
JORGE LOOR | ARCHITECT & INSTRUCTOR
Jorge Loor is an architect from Guayaquil, Ecuador who has a passion for teaching and industrial design. During his studies he assisted Design Workshop class and Construction Materials class with an emphasis on bamboo, after graduating from the Faculty of Architecture and Design at UCSG in Guayaquil, he and two partners started a Study/Workshop specialized on metallic construction, exploring ways on shaping metals into various functional and sculptural pieces of multiple scales that have been exposed in London, Dubai and many countries of South America. As a practicing architect, he incorporates bamboo as a “green steel” in projects that reinterpret traditional construction methods, with a social impact component through sharing knowledge on sustainable practices and materials.
OSCAR LUCAS-SOLIS | Field SCIENTIST & DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR
Oscar was born and raised in Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador where our organization was founded in the heart of coastal Ecuador. Oscar found his passion for nature and science while reforesting the tropical dry forest with his high school Eco-Club. He pursued Water Science Engineering at Ikiam University, deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where he gained hands-on experience in environmental impact assessment. After working in government, assessing wildfire risks, he recognized climate change and agricultural expansion as critical challenges that needed urgent action. Now, as the leader of soil health research at RFI, he is proving that syntropic agroforestry not only restores degraded land but also empowers farmers to build a sustainable and resilient future.
MATTEO SCHAFFNER | director of partnerships
Matteo is an educator and leader born and raised in Atlanta, GA. In June 2024, Matteo graduated from UC San Diego with a B.S. in Neurobiology where he also worked as a TA for class focusing on socio-environmental challenges. He has also written for the UCSD Guardian newspaper, interned at a research lab investigating cellular circadian rhythms, and volunteered at Caritas in Puerto Maldonado, Peru.
He believes that, in the same way DNA is the blueprint for proteins, values are the blueprints for actions. Furthermore, in the same way mutations are the catalysts of biological evolution, changes in our inner and external lives are the catalysts for social evolution. In his free time, you might find him helping plant syntropic systems around the farm, meditating at a lookout spot, playing bossa nova on his guitar, or reading anything from earth science textbooks to Tolkien.
Christopher galena | Dean of student experiences
To Christopher, design is most powerful when applied not only to the built environment, but also to rebuilding ecosystems and addressing contentious social issues.
Born and raised in the Chicago area, Christopher’s journey with RFI began while studying sustainable architecture in the Environmental Design program at the University of Colorado Boulder. He joined one of RFI’s early educational and disaster relief programs, an experience that reshaped his understanding of sustainable design as something that is not just ecologically focused, but also geographically, culturally, and economically grounded. He later served as one of the institute’s campus ambassadors and summer interns before spending two years in Paraguay as an agricultural Peace Corps volunteer, gaining a deeper understanding of community-based solutions.
Now back with RFI, Christopher hopes to inspire other students in the same way the organization inspired him, helping them reconnect with nature and explore what it truly means to regenerate. When he’s not facilitating programs, he can be found traveling Latin America in his 1987 Volkswagen bus with his faithful co-pilot, Mr. Mylo.
Priya musello | PROGRAM INSTRUCTOR
Priya is a environmental and ecotourism specialist, she has for years worked to blend together her passion for her home country of Ecuador and her passion for living in harmony with nature and the environment. From the Galapagos to Canary islands, to living on a reserve in Mindo, Priya brings with her lessons from the land and communities she has lived with. She along with her partner, Niels, have worked on soil regeneration with farmers and regenerative agriculture and she joins our team to share this knowledge with students.
Rafaela salcedo | Operations & projects associate
Rafaela is an agroecologist from Ecuador’s Amazon region with hands-on experience in soil health, regenerative farming systems, and community-based agricultural projects. She has worked with farmers across the Amazon on agroforestry, cacao cultivation, and practical innovations in composting and bio-inputs. At Regeneration Field Institute, she combines technical expertise with a passion for environmental education and field-based research. She’s particularly drawn to understanding soil organisms and beneficial insects as indicators of ecosystem health—the invisible engineers that make regenerative agriculture possible.
Eva Willis | Program Associate
Eva grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, where she spent her free time outdoors or in her dad's workshop, learning to build, repair, and create. Raised with the mindset "we can make that," she developed an early curiosity about how things work and a passion for hands-on problem solving. She went on to study Interior Architecture at the University of Oregon, where she explored how thoughtful design can create more sustainable and resilient communities through adaptive reuse, regenerative building technologies, and vernacular architecture. Today, Eva combines her passions for education and sustainable design by supporting RFI's education programs and contributing to innovative bamboo construction technologies that reduce material waste. She believes that creating a more sustainable future begins with hands-on education, thoughtful design, and learning from both traditional building practices and emerging technologies.
Sam Schneider | Program Associate
Sam is a data scientist from San Diego, California. His love for the environment started with the ocean, where he spent his free time surfing and taking pictures of the local sea critters. After graduating with a degree in computer science, he went on to work in the tech industry. But seeing the direct impact of climate change made him want to merge his technical skills with his love of the planet. He is currently attending Oregon State to obtain his M.S. in Environmental Science. Sam believes that change starts at the smallest level, and that educating and understanding is the first step in tackling this enormous challenge. Furthermore, he believes that sustainability can and should be applied to all fields, including technology.
