Dr. John Day is a distinguished Emeritus Professor with the College of the Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University, where he has taught since 1971. Dr. Day is an internationally recognized expert on the ecology, management and restoration of coastal and wetland ecosystems with over 40 years of experience. He has studied coastal systems in many areas of the world, including Latin America, the Netherlands and several deltas and coastal lagoons in France, Spain, and Italy. Dr. Day has been a visiting scientist at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the National University of Mexico, the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, the Laboratoire d'Ecologie in Arles France, and at the Department of Geography at Cambridge University. He has also worked with the University of Campeche and the Institute of Ecology in Xalapa, Mexico. He has served as major professor for 68 graduate students at LSU and has authored over 400 scientific papers and books on coastal ecology and management.

Dr. Evelia Rivera-Arriaga received a bachelor’s in biology at the UNAM and undertook graduate studies on marine policy at Delaware University. Her expertise areas are marine policy, legislation, integrated coastal marine management, international marine policy, and environmental and climate change policies. She has been the coordinator of the International Network on coasts and seas RICOMAR since 2007. She has been a researcher and professor for 34 years at the EPOMEX Institute at the Autonomous University of Campeche; she was the Minister for the Environment for the Government of Campeche during 2009-2015. She was the President of the Scientific Policy Advisory Committee of the Inter American Institute for the Research of Global Change. She has been a consultant for the Interamerican Development Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean; and for the UNDP and the INECC as national coordinator for the 6th National Communication on climate change; she was lead author for the Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a changing climate for the IPCC in 2019. She is a member of the Ocean Global Forum Policy Advisory Board and a vocal associate of the Steering Conseil of Sureste Sustentable A.C. She is a member of CND of the FMAN Small Donations Program of the UNDP. She has led and participated in research projects, conferences, and undergraduate and graduate courses. She has directed 30 research thesis and designed and implemented the environmental state policy of Campeche.

Dr. Angelina del Carmen Peña-Puch studied her bachelor’s in economics and then her master and PhD in Ecology and Sustainable Development at the ECOSUR, Campeche. She is a specialist in governance of coastal socio-environmental systems with an emphasis on artisanal fisheries and community tourism. She has been a professor and researcher at the EPOMEX Institute since 2021 and her research lines include sustainability sciences, coastal natural resources management, and environmental economics.

Dr. Hunter earned an M.S. in Biology from Tennessee Technological University and a Ph.D. in Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, with an emphasis in Wetland Biogeochemistry, from Louisiana State University. In 2001 Dr. Hunter began working with MWH, Global in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she gained experience with many types of land and water management issues unique to water-limited areas. In addition, a large portion of her time was spent in the development and use of ecological models. In October 2006, Dr. Hunter started working with Comite Resources and has extensive experience in watershed management, focusing particularly on assessing environmental and management impacts on functions, ecology, and biogeochemical processes in freshwater wetlands and brackish and saltwater marshes. Much of her research has focused on the use of created and natural wetlands for assimilation of treated effluent and non-point source pollution. In the past few years, Dr. Hunter has been involved in investigating the impacts of oil and gas exploration and extraction on Louisiana’s coastal wetlands. This work has focused on the impacts of hydrologic modifications, produced water and induced subsidence on Atchafalaya Basin swamps, freshwater floating wetlands, and freshwater, intermediate, brackish, and salt marshes.