Dr. Leo Finkenbinder (center) with his wife, Zana (right), and colleague Dr. Sharon Young (left)
Dr. Leo Finkenbinder (center) with his wife, Zana (right), and colleague Dr. Sharon Young (left)
The Quetzal Education Research Center (QERC) in Costa Rica recently named its hall after Olivet Nazarene University (ONU) Zoology professor and researcher Dr. Leo Finkenbinder and his wife.
The Finkenbinders have spent three decades conducting field research at the site, which included 12 years of direction under the professor's wife, Zana.
The couple has been helping to bring college students to the center for biology field research since the late-1990s. Today, the site hosts students from ONU as well as Southern Nazarene University, where Dr. Finkenbinder has also taught.
“We have worked with more than 1,000 students at the QERC,” Dr. Finkenbinder said. “Watching students develop research skills in a tropical cloud-forest ecosystem has been an amazing journey. I continue to hear from QERC alumni telling [me] how much the experience they had is still having an impact on them. Many of them have gone on to research careers of their own.”
Dr. Finkenbinder has taught at ONU since 2007. In addition to Leo and Zana Finkenbinder Hall, the center's primary trail was also named the Leo and Zana Finkenbinder Sendero by the Chacon family who steward the land the center is built on.
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