Alex grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated with a BA in Latin American Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz, which included a year of study at the University of Chile in Santiago. He has spent extensive periods of time in Latin America, including travel to almost every South American country and development work in Honduras and Chile. Alex began working at Amazon Watch in 2011, first in San Francisco and then based out of Quito, Ecuador. He is fluent in Spanish and has worked alongside indigenous groups in the Amazon and with the Mapuche people of Chile. As field coordinator for ClearWater, Alex feels blessed to work directly in communities, drink chicha, fish and swim in the rivers, and share many laughs with the people of the Amazon.