Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
STRI grew out of a small field station established in 1923 on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal Zone to become one of the world's leading tropical research organizations.
STRI's facilities provide for long-term ecological studies in the tropics and are used by some 1,200 visiting scientists from academic and research institutions around the world every year.
The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Charles Doolittle Walcott, reached an agreement with Federico Boyd to conduct a biological inventory of the new Canal Zone in 1910, and this survey was subsequently extended to include all of Panama.
[1] With the establishment of STRI, permanent staff scientists were hired and fellowship programs were initiated to support aspiring tropical biologists.
[1] A large collection of papers by STRI researchers at Barro Colorado Island was published as an anthology in 1982, The Ecology of a Tropical Rainforest.
Since 1965, STRI has supported some 5,500 fellows and interns of various academic levels, from undergraduate, master and PhD students, to postdoctoral and senior researchers.
It also includes 40 km² of surrounding mainland peninsulas covered by forests in various stages of succession, serving as a site for manipulative field experiments.
[8] STRI has other installations around Panama City including the Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archaeology, a Canopy Access Crane system in the Parque Natural Metropolitano (with a sister crane in the San Lorenzo National Park on Panama's Caribbean slope), and the Naos Marine and Molecular Laboratories on the Amador Causeway.
[11] Adjacent to Soberanía, STRI has the 700-hectare Panama Canal Watershed Experiment, which studies multiple land-use practices to determine their impact on hydrology, carbon storage and potential for reforestation.
[16] An article released by Buzzfeed News in 2021 told the story of 16 women who experienced "a pattern of sexual misconduct by high-ranking men at the institute, one of whom acknowledged his inappropriate behavior".
[18] Incidents included verbal harassments, physical sexual assault, unwanted attention, and have resulted in the widespread call for changes within the Institute.
[19] The fallout has included the firing of employees, an internal investigation, individuals being stripped of their titles, and institutional resources being made available.
From an article in Nature: "Tewksbury says that all bedrooms now have lockable doors, but he notes that such safeguards are impractical in field sites, where researchers sleep in tents.
"[19] Another measure that has been taken is by changing the way that fellowship positions are awarded in the Institute to avoid the extremely unbalanced power dynamics that can occur.
In an article by Nature: "Tewksbury says that, in an attempt to blunt at least some of the power of staff scientists, the STRI is changing how junior researchers are awarded fellowships.
