Joni Seager is Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography of Hunter College in New York City; she is also the former Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, where she remains on faculty.
Her primary areas of research are in feminist environmental policy analysis, the environmental costs of militaries and militarism, and global political economy. Further, she is known for her work on the global condition of women, including prominently her award-winning Women in the World: An International Atlas.She is the author of an additional nine books on environmental and feminist topics, including Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographers Make Sense of the World (with Mona Domosh) and Earth Follies: Coming to Feminist Terms With the Global Environmental Crisis.
Recently, Joni has worked as a consultant to the United Nations Environment Programme to undertake a gender assessment of their environmental work. She is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project (GECHS) of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.

Thais Corral has been implementing global and local initiatives geared to strengthen the role of women in the sustainable development platform for the last two decades. She is the founder of two non-profit organizations in Brazil, REDEH and CEMINA, and one international, WEDO. She was the capacity building director of the South-South-North Collaborative that leapfrogged projects on mitigation and adaptation to climate change with poverty reduction in six countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia. One of these projects, which she directly coordinated, Pintadas-Solar, won the 2008 SEED Award and was recognized as a best practice by the UN-Habitat-Dubai Award.

She is the chair of LEAD Brazil and Global Leadership Network that launched the first programme to train leaders of the different sectors in Brazil on Leadership for Climate Security. She has a master’s in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University USA, and currently lives in Brazil.

Dr Emma Archer, Principal Researcher, Climate Change, Natural Resources and the Environment, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa.
Prior to her appointment at the CSIR, Dr Archer lectured in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, and was a senior researcher at the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town. She continues to supervise post-graduate students at both institutions.
Dr Archer completed her PhD at Clark University in the United States, focusing on climate change and grazing systems in the Karoo; followed by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Global and Climate Change Postdoctoral Fellowship at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University, co-hosted by the Pennsylvania State University.

Ashbindu Singh has postgraduate degrees in physical and natural sciences and a PhD in environmental science. From 1977 to 1990, he worked with the Indian Forest Service. He joined the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1990 and has worked in Bangkok, Nairobi, Sioux Falls, New York and Washington DC. His speciality is analysing environmental sustainability issues around the globe. He has written over 100 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and conferences and 35 UNEP reports on various environmental issues. His research findings are referred to by the scientific community and environmental policy-makers. His team has produced highly influential reports on various environmental issues including global forests, threats to freshwater, coastal vulnerability, linkages between environment and health, environmental conflicts, transboundary air pollutants, biodiversity and UNEP’s award winning publication: One Planet many people: Atlas of our changing environment.

He has won numerous international awards, including the UN21 Award in 2005 and the UNEP Baobab Award in 2008.