Arturo A. Massol-Deyá is from the mountainous area of Puerto Rico in the municipality of Adjuntas where his parents Alexis Massol and Tinti Deyá founded the community-based organization Casa Pueblo. Massol-Deyá grew up in this project and has chaired its Board of Directors since 2007. A graduate of the public school system (1986) and the University of Puerto Rico (1990), he obtained his doctoral degree from the Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University in 1994. Since then he has been a faculty member at the Department of Biology of the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez Campus where he established the Tropical Microbial Ecology Lab. He has been a mentor to numerous students and a principal investigator of projects on microbial ecology with emphasis on biological processes aimed at restoring contaminated environments.
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Cecilio Ortiz Garcia is Professor of Political Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, and currently Hubert H. Humphrey Distinguished Visiting Professor at Macalester College School Of Environmental Studies. He is a Founding Member of the National Institute of Energy and Island Sustainability and originator of the RISE Network, an Inter University Collaborative Convergence Platform for Community Resilience.
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Robert Perez Rivero was born in Havana, Cuba in 1970. He is an environmentalist, sustainability activist and educator. He holds a BSc in Biological Sciences, University of Havana 1993, postgraduate Studies in Community Based Resource Management, at Caribbean Natural Resources Institute St Lucia, 1999 and SFX University in Nova Scotia, Canada, 2004. Member of original group of Permaculture pioneers in Cuba. He is the Nature and Community Program Coordinator at Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation. He has 25 years of experience implementing international cooperation programs on environmental education, community based forestry, sustainable agriculture, permaculture, community development and biodiversity conservation in several countries. Robert has has lectured, trained and visited in more than 25 countries and has been involved in IUCN work since 2004 and in biodiversity, climate change and other UN work with NGOs. He has worked extensively in communities of protected areas, rescuing traditional knowledge on bio-cultural diversity and bringing sustainable practices in watershed, coastal and marine ecosystems, small island sustainable development, sustainable fisheries, species conservation and climate resiliency. He is the editor, director and now contributor in Editorial Council of Se Puede, a quarterly Cuban grassroots environmental magazine.
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Leidy Casimiro Professor at the Universidad de Sancti Spíritus, Cuba with more than fifteen years of experience in research and practice in the field of agroecology and permaculture. Graduated as an Economist in 2004 at the Universidad Central de las Villas, and a Lawyer in 2012 by the Universidad de Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. Received a PhD in Agroecology from the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, in 2016. Professor of master’s degree and doctorate programs at the Universidad de Matanzas and the Universidad Agraria de La Habana. Specialist and coordinator within the international Project BIOMAS Cuba and BIOENERGIA, from the Agronomic Experimental Station Indio Hatuey in Matanzas, Cuba. Active member of the National Group of Facilitators of Permaculture in Cuba and the Slow Food International movement. She created a methodology to evaluate the resiliency of family farms, used by the FAO and Slow Food International. Author of many articles in national and international scientific journals, chapters of books and a book, she also has attended several international and national conferences. Member of the Casimiro farming family at Finca del Medio, a world reference on agroecology and permaculture.