Our Directors & Volunteers
Introducing the FogQuest Team
Executive Director
Robert Schemenauer is in charge of the operation of FogQuest. He has been working on water projects using fog collectors for more than 20 years, was the Chair of the International Conferences on Fog and Fog Collection in 1998 and 2001, and the Chair or member of the Scientific Committees for the conferences in 2004, 2007 and 2010. He has a Ph.D. in cloud physics and a broad background in the atmospheric sciences. He currently lives in Kamloops, British Columbia. He was a research scientist with Environment Canada for 25 years and then an emeritus research scientist. He is also currently an adjunct professor with Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. Gardening, genealogy and traveling fill his spare time.
Board of Directors
Tony Makepeace is a Toronto based photographer and multi media developer. He has contributed articles and portfolios to numerous magazines and holds part-time faculty positions at Sheridan Institute and The University of Guelph. He has also served as a director of the Toronto-based Nepal Community Development Foundation since 1995.
Peter Schuepp is presently an emeritus professor with McGill University and has been a dedicated member of the board of directors of FogQuest for many years. He has a background in cloud physics, agricultural meteorology and aircraft measurements of fluxes of heat and gases. He is an award winning scientist for his career in micrometeorology and natural resource sciences. He presently lives in Orillia, Ontario, Canada.
Rick Taylor is a chiropractor with a practice in Fonthill, Ontario. He started his involvement with FogQuest as a tireless supporter and fund raiser for the fog collection projects in Nepal. Over the last three years he has visited Guatemala frequently and has contributed greatly to the fog collection projects there. His interests include developing technical innovations to improve the fog collectors and the water measurements.
Advisors to the Board of Directors
Elizabeth Dowdeswell is a former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program and Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations. She was also the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Atmospheric Environment Service in Canada and is now a consultant living in Toronto, Ontario.
David Phillips is perhaps Canada's most famous weather personality. He is a senior climatologist with Environment Canada and regularly appears on television and in the print media speaking on weather issues. He lives in Aurora, Ontario with his family and Winston the weather dog.
Outreach & Special Projects Coordinator
Melissa Rosato is a graduate of the Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo, which is near Toronto, and will start a Master’s program in the fall of 2009. She spent a four-month co-op term with FogQuest at the end of 2003 working on developing projects and partnerships in Latin America. She returned during the summer of 2004 working on fund raising and on the development of a new water projects. In the last few years she has taken the lead on the very successful fog collection project for the people of Tojquia in Guatemala. She also has arranged for the participation of school groups and film crew in our projects.
Field Projects CoordinatorVirginia Carter Gamberini is a graduate of the Geography Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. She currently works for the Meteorological Service of Chile. Through her experience gained on the construction of fog collectors in Chile she has become a very valuable part of the FogQuest project implementation team. She directed the construction of the fog collectors at two sites in Eritrea in Africa and at the Tojquia site in Guatemala. She assists with sourcing materials for the projects and in getting new projects underway.
Pablo Osses was the Field Operations Manager of FogQuest in its early years. He assisted with the design and construction of the fog collectors in both the evaluation and operational projects. He was also responsible for data analysis and field staff. He has worked on fog collection projects for almost 15 years and lives in Santiago, Chile, where he is an Associate Professor in the Geography Department of the Catholic University. The university and his young family take most of his time these days but he remains a valuable resource person for FogQuest to call upon.
Financial Manager
Mark Couture is the Financial Manager. Now that FogQuest has moved its operations to Kamloops, Speedmaster BC, his main task is to assist with financial statements related to grant applications. He is based in Toronto and works in the research directorate of Environment Canada. His background is in data analysis and technical support to field projects.
Core Volunteers
Pilar Cereceda is a professor in the Geography Institute of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. She is one of the founders of the technology and has been working on fog collection projects for over twenty years. She is an expert in the physical geography of deserts and in arid lands biogeography. She is also the director of the Atacama Desert Center in Chile. She assists in site evaluations, and has been tremendously helpful in finding students to work with FogQuest on projects in Chile and in other parts of the world. 
Phyllis Cheung is a civil engineer by training who is presently the Manager of the International Department of the Hong Kong Red Cross. Her home is in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She played an important part in the construction of the fog collectors for two villages in Eritrea and is currently providing advice to a community in China that wishes to install a fog water collection system. 
Fernanda Rojas Marchini is completing her geography degree with the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. She has assisted with the construction of the fog collectors at Tojquia in Guatemala and directed the last phase of the construction process.
Jose Manuel Molina is completing a Master’s degree in hydrologic sciences and engineering at Colorado State University in the USA before moving with his young family to Brussels, Belgium. 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 is a member of the scientific committee for the 2010 International Conference on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew, and helps answer questions and provide advice when queries are received from northern South America.
Marian Sauer approached FogQuest in late 2009 with a desire to assist as a volunteer. Since that time he has been providing valuable help with the preparations for the new fog collection project in northern Ethiopia. He lives in Frankfurt, Germany, and has been going to university in Darmstadt where he has studied construction engineering. His diploma thesis related to the use of fog and dew as sustainable water sources. His hobbies include soccer and diving.