Directors & Volunteers


FogQuest: sustainable water solutions, also referred to as FogQuest on this website, is a not-for-profit limited liability corporation that is incorporated in the Province of Ontario, Canada.

It is also a Registered Charity with the Government of Canada.

Charitable registration number: 87420 1312 RR0001

Mailing address: 448 Monarch Place,
Kamloops BC, V2E 2B2
Canada

info@fogquest.org 

Introducing the FogQuest Team

Executive Director

Bob264-44Robert Schemenauer was a co-founder of FogQuest in 2000 and is in charge of the day-to-day operation of FogQuest. He has been working on water projects using fog collectors for more than 35 years, was the founder of the International Conference series on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew, and Chair of the conferences in 1998 and 2001. He was also Chair or member of the Scientific Committees for many subsequent conferences. He has a Ph.D. in cloud physics and a broad background in the atmospheric sciences.

Among the awards he has received is the University Medal and Distinguished Scientist Award from the University of Hawaii, Hilo in 2004 in recognition of distinguished and sustained research contributions in fog science.

He currently lives in Kamloops, British Columbia. He was a research scientist with Environment Canada for 25 years and then an emeritus research scientist for another 10 years.  He was an adjunct professor with Thompson Rivers University from 2008 to 2010 and remains active in the scientific community both in Canada and internationally. Gardening, genealogy and traveling fill his spare time.


Board of Directors

tonyTony Makepeace is a Toronto based photographer, teacher, and educational media developer.  He has contributed articles and portfolios to numerous magazines and maintains a sessional faculty position at George Brown College in Toronto.

He has also served as a director of the Canadian NGO The Nepal Community Development Foundation since 1995.

http://tonymakepeace.net


BignellBioPicByron Bignell is a sociologist, researcher and technology/IoT developer based in Kamloops whose research interests focus on sustainable development and the impact of project failure on the health status of the affected communities.

Byron has been deeply involved in the design, development and testing of low-cost solar-powered data logging and remote sensing systems for fog collection. For the past 10 years, he has also served on the board of directors of the Toronto-based Nepal Community Development Foundation.


Bob264-44Robert Schemenauer 

He is presently serving both as a director and the Executive Director of FogQuest.

 


Advisors to the Board of Directors

Pilar Cereceda is a retired professor from the Geography Institute, of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago.

She is one of the founders of the fog collection technology and has been working on fog collection projects for over thirty years. She is an expert in the physical geography of deserts and in arid lands bio-geography. She was also the founder and original director of the Atacama Desert Center in Chile. She has assisted with technical correspondence and has been tremendously helpful in finding and training students to work with FogQuest on projects in Chile and in other parts of the world.


Virginia Carter  is a Geographer and has a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies. She studied in Ghent, Belgium where she has earned her Ph.D. in Geography at Ghent University.

She has extensive experience in coordinating fog collection projects both with university groups in Chile and for FogQuest, namely in Chile (Falda Verde, Patache, and Talinay), Guatemala (Tojquia and La Ventosa) and Eritrea (Nefasit and Arborobú). Since 2004, she has worked as a volunteer at FogQuest in the position of Field Projects Coordinator.

She has experience with environmental and territorial topics in public institutions, such as at the Logistical Command of the Air Force, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of the Environment, among others. After returning to Chile from Belgium, she accepted an academic position with the Geography Institute, of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago.

Virginia brings dedication, hard work and enthusiasm to both the large and small projects she assists with in FogQuest.


Jose Manuel Molina has a Master’s degree in hydrologic sciences and engineering from Colorado State University in the USA. He moved with his young family to study in Brussels, Belgium. After a period there, he returned to Maryland, USA where he worked at John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

He is a native of Colombia, South America, and has guided the development of a fog collection project for a village there in cooperation with colleagues in a number of institutions. He was a member of the scientific committee for the 2013 International Conference on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew, and, as well as assisting with fog project work in Colombia, helps answer questions and provide advice when queries are received from the northern countries of South America.

Our Gratitude to Those Who Have Helped

We express our gratitude to the following people who have served in various supervisory or advisory capacities with FogQuest over the years: Dr. Peter Schuepp recently retired director of FogQuest; Sherry Bennett; Dr. Richard Taylor; David Phillips; Mark Couture; Tara Cracknell; Fernanda Rojas Marchini; Pablo Osses McIntyre; Juan Luis Garcia; and Nicolas Zanetta.

In addition, our sincere thanks go out to all those who have volunteered in field projects or in our office since we began in the year 2000.