Executive Director - Rachel Kramer

Rachel leads CPALI’s ambitions to restore biodiversity and enhance local livelihoods in border regions of Madagascar's northeastern rainforest by sharing contemporary Malagasy textile art with global audiences. Conversant in Malagasy and French, she works closely with our Madagascar collaborators, general manager, and board members to support community-based innovations in sustainable development, nature loss reversal, and climate change mitigation. She previously worked for the National Wildlife Federation and for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), managing global projects including USAID Targeting Natural Resource Corruption, TRAFFIC wildlife trade monitoring activities, and work under WWF’s Google Global Impact Award. Her lasting impact includes teaming with global conservation and governance institutions to launch two enduring initiatives—Wildlabs.net, the wildlife technology network, and the Countering Environmental Corruption Practitioners Forum. Rachel holds an MA in Anthropology and Conservation Ecology from Brandeis University and an MESc from the Yale School of the Environment, where she was a Doris Duke Conservation Fellow.

Lead Artisan at SEPALI Madagascar - Lalaina Raharindimby

Lalaina leads the SEPALI Madagascar artisans association in Maroantsetra, facilitating design of new products made from wild silk and raffia, guiding quality control, and managing human resources and accounting. She has traveled to the US to serve as ambassador for Tanana Madagascar at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe and Shoppe Object's Global Artisan Project in New York. Her designs can be found at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art shop in Washington, DC, among other locations.

Board Chair - Petra Silton

Board chair Petra has been a CPALI supporter since meeting founder Cay in 2010 in an airport in Maroantsetra, Madagascar, homebase for CPALI’s sister organization SEPALI Madagascar. Throughout her career, she has initiated and led groundbreaking programs for nonprofit organizations to address a wide range of issues: the environment, homelessness, education, and civic participation. She has also supported nonprofit capacity-building as a meeting facilitator and strategic planner.

Director and Treasurer - Dr. Bob Webber

Bob advises CPALI and SEPALI Madagascar on technology, most recently on the campaign to develop biochar, and has contributed to the organization’s recent growth with a steady eye on finances and logistics. Before retiring from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 2022, he had applied his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University to pursuits in academia, industry and a national laboratory, focusing on renewable fuels and abatement of environmental emissions. In addition to his role as an active board member for CPALI, he continues to work on environmental efforts and recently taught a short course on recycling waste plastic at Polytechnique Montréal.

Director - Amelia Thrall

Board member Amelia appreciates CPALI’s support for creative livelihoods in a rural region accessible only by boat or plane and for increasing the stability of farmers’ earnings, both of which can help parents cover the cost of their children’s education. A LEED-accredited architect and architectural firm sustainability manager who has focused on designing spaces for learning and living, she values the biophilic quality of the wild silk textiles sold by Tanana Madagascar.

General Manager - Kyley Schmidt

Soon after Kyley joined the team as general manager in 2022, she established the framework for Tanana Madagascar, a vision for sharing wild silk textiles from Madagascar with a broadening international audience. Conversant in Malagasy, she has collaborated with Malagasy silk artisans since 2003, supporting job growth in Madagascar through cultural preservation of the nation’s art forms.  She has served in marketing and management roles for fair trade and environmentally conscious organizations throughout her career.  Kyley holds a BS in Textile Technology and Design from N.C. State University and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Director and SEPALI Madagascar Founder - Mamy Ratsimbazafy

Director and SEPALI Madagascar founder Mamy established his locally-based organization in 2006. A respected entomologist, Mamy continues to perform research focusing on native species that can be integrated into border forests, local agroforestry systems and areas of damaged habitat. Restoring forest habitats is a long-term process involving detailed conservation planning, with species of trees and understory plants that can provide diverse benefits to a community through intercropping. SEPALI Madagascar currently uses silk from Ceranchia apollina, Argema mettrei, Borocera cajani, Antherina suraka, two undescribed species of Deborrea, Hypsoides singularis, and Bombyx mori.  These moths need a wide array of native host plants and each is supported by different habitats in communities around Madagascar. Through his work, Mamy has also become an environmental educator in the region bordering the Makira National Park, reaching more than a thousand school children with lessons on wild silk, and producing a guide to no-kill silkworm rearing used in communities where farmers have embraced silkworm rearing. Farmers involved in the SEPALI Madagascar program have planted tens of thousands of trees for the endemic moths of Madagascar.

Advisor and CPALI Founder - Dr. Catherine Craig

Close observations of the impacts of habitat loss and climate change on spider species led CPALI founder and board member Cay to pivot from field research in ecology and evolutionary biology to become a trailblazing non-profit director. She approached her vision of a wild silk farming program with her scientific knowledge of silk proteins, insects, tropical habitats, and of the critical role of local collaborations. Cay’s fellow scientist Mamy, who shared her interest in scientific research toward environmentally-focused social enterprise, founded a Madagascar-based NGO ensuring that CPALI’s goals would be pursued under local management, and with a sound scientific foundation. Together, Cay and Mamy studied endemic species in areas bordering protected national parks to identify communities where there would be mutual benefits between humans and the environment through silk farming as a form of habitat restoration. By providing education on the positive impacts of locally-based conservation through enterprise, she found support that sustained CPALI’s growth through two decades and created a pathway for the organization to continue to flourish under new leadership.  

Director and Clerk - Leslie Brunetta

Seeing new agroforestry and biofuels initiatives initiated by SEPALI Madagascar is energizing long-time board member Leslie. A board member since the beginning days of the CPALI organization two decades ago, Leslie appreciates the stability that partner organizations have established in their regions. Growing numbers of farmers and artisans are wanting to work on CPALI-supported programs for a range of motivations, whether it be diminished dependence on single-crop farming with its unpredictable price variations, an appreciation of the environmental goals of the project, funding education or medical needs, or pursuit of a creative career.  Co-author with CPALI founder Cay Craig of Spider Silk: 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging, and Mating (Yale Univ. Press), Leslie is currently writing with the Cambridge Black History Project in Cambridge, MA. Leslie is most proud of the respect CPALI has for the knowledge, insights, and efforts of our Malagasy management, farmer, and artisan partners.