As Executive Director of Global Response, Paula Palmer has researched and written Global Response action alerts and directed Global Response campaigns since 1996. She is a sociologist and writer with 30 years' experience working with indigenous populations in Central America and the United States. In Costa Rica, she published five books of oral history in collaboration with Afro-Caribbean and indigenous peoples, through a community empowerment process known as Participatory Action Research.

Paula is co-founder of several nonprofit organizations on Costa Rica's Atlantic Coast, through which local communities pursue a style of development appropriate to their traditional cultures and natural environment.From 1995 to 2001 she served as editor for health and environment of Winds of Change magazine, a Native American quarterly. She holds an M.A. degree in sociology from Michigan State University and is adjunct faculty in the Environmental Studies Department of the Naropa University. She is profiled in American Environmental Leaders From Colonial Times to the Present (ABC−CLIO, 2000) and Biodiversity, A Reference Handbook (ABC−CLIO 1998).

In 2004, she was honored with two regional awards for her activism: The Elise Boulding Peacemaker of the Year Award was given by the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, and the Jack Gore Memorial Peace Award was given by the American Friends Service Committee.