Gad Perry is a professor of Conservation Science and the Co-Lead of the Center for Urban and Rural Environmental Sustainability (CURES) at Texas Tech University (TTU). He has served on the faculty at TTU since 2002 and has previously headed the International Research and Development Division (IRDD) and the International Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Land Studies (ICASALS) at TTU. He received a BSc in Biology and an MSc in Zoology from Tel Aviv University in Israel and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin. His main research interest centers on conservation biology, with particular emphasis on invasive and endangered species issues and urbanization. He is a member of the IUCN invasive species and iguana specialist groups and has conducted field studies in the British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guam, Israel, and the U.S., among others, often collaborating with local colleagues. In 2019, he was honored by Texas Tech with the Faculty International Scholarship Global Vision Award.

Dr. Robert D. Cox is Professor of Habitat Restoration in the Department of Natural Resources Management and President’s Excellence in Teaching Professor at Texas Tech University. He earned his M.S. in Botany at Brigham Young University in 2000 and a Ph.D. in Botany at the University of California, Riverside in 2006. His research spans a gradient from producer-driven questions of invasive species control, to ecological restoration of native species.