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Eduardo Batllori Sampedro

Secretary of Urban Development and Environment of the State of Yucatán

With a doctorate in geography from Universidad de La Habana in Cuba, a master of science degree from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies at Mexico’s Instituto Politécnico Nacional (Cinvestav-IPN) in Mérida, and a bachelor’s degree in hydrobiology from Universidad Autónoma Nacional (UAM-Iztapalapa), Eduardo Batllori Sampedro is a researcher at Cinvestav and a Level I member of the National Research System (SNI).

He has dedicated most of his professional career to academia, teaching postgraduate courses with an emphasis on coastal ecosystems in the Yucatán peninsula. One of his main lines of research has been the assessment of the environmental impact of human activities along the ecological chain and the hydrobiological regime in coastal wetland ecosystems, to identify mitigation and rehabilitation measures by training the public on the comprehensive management of coastal resources.

He has also developed and managed environmental projects for national and international support agencies. Mr. Batllori Sampedro has authored several articles published in peer-reviewed journals and has participated in more than 100 national and international congresses. Since August 2007, he has been Yucatán’s Secretary of Urban Development and the Environment.

Irasema Coronado

Executive Director, Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)

Irasema Coronado was appointed Executive Director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), effective 1 December 2012.

Irasema Coronado, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Coronado is also an affiliated faculty member in the Environmental Science and Engineering PhD program. At the university, she has served as an associate provost (2008-2012), associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts (2006-2008), chair of the Political Science Department (2005-2006), and assistant professor of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies (1999-2003). Dr. Coronado was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico (2004-2005), and a faculty member at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas (1995-1999).

Dr. Coronado has held other academic and visiting scholar positions at the University of Texas at San Antonio (1998-1999), the University of Arizona (1997 and 2001), El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Sonora, Mexico (1992-1995), and Cochise College (1991). Dr. Coronado is currently a member of the boards of Frontera Women’s Foundation, the Coalition Against Violence Toward Women and Children on the Border, FEMAP (Mexican Federation of Private Associations), and the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation. Dr. Coronado holds a BA from the University of South Florida and an MA and PhD from the University of Arizona. Hispanic Business Magazine named her one of top 100 influential hispanics in the United States in October of 2010.

Martín Gutiérrez Lacayo

JPAC Chair for 2012

An attorney specializing in environmental law who graduated from Universidad Iberoamericana, Martín Gutiérrez has been known in recent years as the creator of private land conservation schemes in Mexico, including the development of the first ecological easement agreements.

Currently general director of Pronatura México, A.C., and consultant to the World Bank in land conservation and transversal integration, he was for 10 years director of Pronatura’s National Land Conservation Program.

Francisco Padrón Gil

Director, IMAC

A doctoral candidate in political and social sciences, with a master’s degree in regional rural development and a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology, in addition to studies in physical engineering, Francisco Padrón Gil has worked on biodiversity conservation and sustainable development projects for the last 12 years.

Since July 2001, he has been the director of the Mexican Conservation Learning Network (IMAC), whose mission is to build the capacities of conservation and sustainable development organizations in Mexico. In this position, he has facilitated and designed participatory strategic planning, project assessment, multi-sector collaboration and inter-institutional processes. He has also acted as mediator and negotiator.

Previously, he worked as a researcher (1991–1997) at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and at Universidad Iberoamericana, as well as with the World Wildlife Fund Mexico (1997–2001), first as Organizational Development Coordinator and then as coordinator of the Mexican Forest Program.

Elizabeth Smith

Associate National Program Director, Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, US EPA

Currently Associate National Program Director for Ecological and Human Health Integration within the US EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program in Research Triangle Park, NC, Betsy Smith is the former director of EPA’s Regional Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) Program, which dealt with actions that responded to stressors affecting multiple resources at varying geographic scales. Dr. Smith holds a B.S. in forestry from The University of the South, and an M.S. in forest biometrics and Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Tennessee. Prior to joining EPA, Dr. Smith worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority for 14 years in the areas of regional-scale monitoring and assessment, research on air pollution impacts to forests, and landscape analyses.

Evelia Rivera Arriaga

Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development of the State of Campeche

A biologist at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, with master’s and doctoral studies in marine policy from University of Delaware, Evelia Rivera Arriaga is a specialist in marine policy, coastal law and management, sustainable development, coastal ecosystem ecology and environmental education.

She has been a professor at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad Autónoma de Campeche, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas and Universidad Marista, Mérida campus. She has also been a researcher at the University of Delaware’s College of Marine Studies, Universidad Autónoma de Campeche and the Gulf of Mexico Ecology, Fisheries and Oceanography Center (Epomex). She is a Level I researcher in Mexico’s National Research System (SNI).

She has been involved in more than 30 local, regional, national and international research, assessment and planning projects, including the proposal of national guidelines for comprehensive coastal management and the national policy for the sustainable development of Mexico’s oceans and coasts.

As a member of Editorial Committee of the journal Ocean and Coastal Management, published by Elsevier, and a founding member of the Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands (created at the 2002 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg), Ms Rivera Arriaga has authored nine books (including Climate Change in Mexico: A Coastal and Marine Approach (Cambio climático en México: un enfoque costero y marino), 14 book chapters and 56 articles in scientific publications and journals. She has also given 60 conferences at various congresses and seminars, and belongs to eight scientific societies.

Currently Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development for the State of Campeche, Ms Rivera Arriaga is coordinator for the south-southeast region of the National Association of State Environmental Authorities.

Chief Carl Sidney

Chief Executive Officer of the Teslin Tlingit Council Yukon

Khìxhikayêł (Carl Sidney) was born into the Kùkhhittàn clan of the Teslin Tlingit, an indigenous First Nation’s people, in 1955, in the small northwestern Canadian village of Teslin in the Yukon Territory. He was raised traditionally by his Grandmother Yes-ketch (Olive Sidney), living off the rich land of the Teslin Tlingit First Nations people, then schooled in Teslin, Whitehorse, and Vancouver.

Mr. Sidney began his working life as a manufacturer of cedar canoes in Teslin, then joined the Canadian military for six years. He has also worked as a diesel mechanic, heavy equipment operator, miner, diamond driller, Teslin Tlingit executive councilor, Teslin Tlingit deputy chief and is currently the chief executive officer of the Teslin Tlingit Council and co-chairperson of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council, representing the Dak-ka Kwan Nation. He has also been a member of the Yukon Heritage Resources Board, the Salmon Subcommittee, the National Chiefs’ Committee on Fisheries for the Assembly of First Nations and the Yukon River Panel, and the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board.

Albert W. Miller

Commissioner, Jeff Davis County

Albert Miller manages the family cattle ranch in the Wild Horse Draw and Sierra Vieja Mountains of the Chihuahuan Desert. He earned a degree in range management from Texas Tech University and served as a Range Conservationist and District Conservationist with the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service prior to returning to the ranch. He currently serves a director of the Highland Soil and Water Conservation District, the Trans Pecos Water and Land Trust, the Far West Texas Regional Water Planning Group, and as a commissioner of Jeff Davis County

Orlando Cabrera

CEC Program Manager, Air Quality and PRTR

Orlando Cabrera-Rivera has over twenty years of experience in the environmental management field and in the development and implementation of international, national, regional and local environmental pollution management and policy initiatives. Since 2007, Mr. Cabrera-Rivera has been the Manager of the Air Quality and Pollutant Releases Program of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). He coordinates trilateral capacity building and environmental information analysis efforts aimed at enhancing the comparability and accessibility of pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR) data and air quality-related information for North America.

Mr. Cabrera-Rivera has a bachelors of science degree in meteorology from the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a masters of science degree in land resources management from the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.

Karen Richardson

Program Manager, Terrestrial and Marine Ecosystems

Karen Richardson has over 25 years of experience in the fields of biodiversity conservation, GIS modeling, sustainability and environmental information, with extensive field experience in conservation and protected area planning. She has worked in academia, the private sector and for a large international organization.

Since 2009, Dr. Richardson has been the Manager of the Environmental Information Program and more recently the Terrestrial and Marine Ecosystem Program of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). She supports several projects aimed at increasing resilience of shared terrestrial and marine ecosystems at risk, in particular those focused on North America’s grasslands and marine protected areas, and a project to develop methodologies and strengthen information sharing on the role of ecosystem carbon storage as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Richardson has a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Queen’s University, a Master of Science degree in biology from McGill University and a Doctorate degree in geography from McGill University.