Olga F. Linares

Linares also examined "Ecology and the arts in ancient Panama." During this research she studied the culture and art of ancient populations of the central provinces of Panama. Much of her research was done at Sitio Conte where she collected artifacts in order to better understand the 'meaning and function' of the arts. This included a study of trade practices and social structures of power during the 16th century of the Cocle and Cuna cultures.

Linares retired in 2008 as senior research scientist at STRI, after an association at the institute lasting some 35 years. She retained status as scientist emerita with the STRI scientific faculty.

Fellow: American Association for the Advancement of Science; mem.: National Academy of Sciences, Royal Anthropology Institute, Am. Anthropology Association (member ethics committee 1992—93).

From the 1980s until present, Linares began extensive research in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal, the region located below the Gambia. More specifically, this research focused on social organizations and food production of the Jola people (also spelled Diola.) She looks at the varying techniques of wet rice production and compares them with different modes of cultivation in the region. She also examines how social organization shapes these differing methods.

Grantee National Science Foundation, 1965, 1970—73

Linares served as an instructor of anthropology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1964 and a lecturer of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 1966 to 1971. She also was a visiting associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin in 1974. Linares worked as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford University in California, from 1979 to 1980 and as a visiting professor in 1982. Later she was a fellow at St. John's overseas at Cambridge University in England from 1986 to 1987. In 2002 she was a trustee for the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in Rome in 2002.

Linares received her B.A. in Anthropology from Vassar College in 1958 and later completed her Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1964.

Olga Francesca Linares (November 10, 1936 – December 2, 2014; formerly Olga Linares de Sapir) was a Panamanian–American academic anthropologist and archaeologist, and senior staff scientist (emerita) at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, who have supported much of her research throughout her career. She is well known for her work on the cultural ecology of Panama, and more recently in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal. She is also concerned with the social organization of agrarian systems as well as the relationship between "ecology, political economy, migration and the changing dynamics of food production among rural peoples living in tropical regions".

Olga Linares was born November 10, 1936 in the city of David, Panama, the daughter of Francisco (Frank) Esteban Linares and Olga Tribaldos de Linares., She married her second husband Martin Moynihan, founding director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and animal behaviorist, in 1973. Moynihan passed away on December 3, 1996. After having been widowed for many years, Linares married Fenwick “Fen” C. Riley in 2006 and lived in Panama until their deaths a few months apart in 2014.