Gordon McBean, CM, PhD, FRSC is Director of Policy Studies, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada where he has been since 2000 a Professor of Geography and Political Science. From 1994-2000, he was the Assistant Deputy Minister for the Meteorological Service of Environment Canada and Permanent Representative of Canada to the WMO. He was also an elected member of the WMO Executive Council. Prior to that, he was Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He is a Member of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the American Meteorological Society. Among his many national and international activities are now Chair, Science Committee for the ICSU-ISSC-UNISDR Integrated Research on Disaster Risk program and Chair of START International. He previously Chaired the World Climate Research Programme.

Don Gunasekera has a PhD in Economics from the Australian National University and completed the Senior Managers in Government Program at Harvard University, USA. He is currently Visiting Scientist at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Centre for Complex Systems Science. Until recently, he was Chief Economist at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE). In 2008, Don led ABARE’s climate change modelling work for the Garnaut Climate Change Review. In 2007, he was a member of an independent working group for the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, which prepared the report “Climate change in Australia: regional impacts and adaptation”. Don has had wide experience in the Australian Public Service, working in a range of organizations, including the Department of Environment and Heritage and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Holger Meinke heads the Centre for Crop Systems Analysis at Wageningen University and Research Centre (Netherlands). He and his team develop climate robust cropping systems by improving plant production at various levels of integration. This includes climate risk assessments for the emerging field of “adaptation science”, which he champions. Holger is a member of several editorial boards and Earth System Science Partnership-related panels and committees (e.g. the World Climate Research Programme’s Climate Variability and Predictability programme and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). He also acts as a scientific reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Prior to moving to the Netherlands, Holger was a Principal Scientist with the Queensland Government in Australia (1988 to 2007). He is a founding member of the Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit and was co-responsible for the design, implementation and management of the agricultural systems simulation platform. He pioneered the application of seasonal climate forecasting and operational climate risk management in Australia and internationally.

Holger has published over 70 papers in disciplinary and transdisciplinary journals.

Professor Matthias Ruth holds the Roy F. Weston Chair in Natural Economics at the University of Maryland, USA, where he also serves as founding director of the Center for Integrative Environmental Research and as Co-director of the program in Engineering and Public Policy. His research focuses on dynamic modeling of natural resource use, industrial and infrastructure systems analysis, and environmental economics and policy. Professor Ruth has published 12 books and over 100 papers and book chapters in the scientific literature. He collaborates extensively with scientists and decision makers in policy and industry in the USA, Canada, Europe, Oceania, Asia and Africa.

During the last four decades (1970-2009), Mohammed Sadeck BOULAHYA has acquired outstanding experience in science & technology for development and capacity building to enable professionals in applying weather and climate sciences to integrated natural resource management and agriculture in North then the whole of Africa. He holds a Research Certificate in Arid Land Agro-meteorology from CSIRO-Australia (1973), State Engineer in Hydro-Meteorology, WMO Class I Master of Sciences (1972), and Diploma in Advanced Applied Mathematics (1970). With the support from UNDP-GEF and GCOS, Mohammed Sadeck contributed to the initiation, development and resource mobilization of the ClimDevAfrica Programme with full ownership and leadership from the main Pan African Institutions, like AUC, ECA and AfDB. In parallel, he has contributed to the conception of an Early Warning and Advisory Climate Services System, formulated as a support to an Integrated Disaster & Climate Risk Management in North Africa, then for the whole of Africa, mobilizing resources from the African Development Bank and other Africa’s Partners. Since June 2007, he has been an Independent Adviser to the ACMAD Management, with a mission to initiate an International Development & Advocacy Committee of Eminent Persons (IDACom) for resource mobilization and strategic partnership.

With some 40 years experience with 20 years operating all over Africa, Mohammed has accumulated knowledge and capabilities to advise and contribute to the initiation, conception, implementation or evaluation of any socio-economic and natural resources management programme which is already or might be impacted by an ever changing climate. Since May 2009, Mohammed Sadeck is, as part of a Multidisciplinary Team, consultant for the World Bank in Climate Risk Management and Capacity Development, in the water and agriculture sectors.

Dr. Vladimir Tsirkunov is a task team leader working in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) vice-presidency of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank. He has over 25 years of scientific, applied technical and project management experience in environmental and natural resource management. Since 2003 he is involved in development and implementation of investment projects supporting modernization of National meteorological and hydrological services in ECA region including the Russia Hydromet Modernization Project (project cost is over USD 180 million). This project supports upgrading of most important elements of RosHydromet infrastructure, it strengthens RosHydromet’s capacity to deliver better weather, climate and hydrological services and reduce losses from natural hazards to the economy and people. Vladimir was also a manager and one of key authors of analytical work on “Weather and Climate Services in Europe and Central Asia. A Regional Overview” completed in 2007. Since 2006 he is a member of a Task-Force on Socio-Economic Applications of Public Weather Services, WMO. Prior to joining the World Bank in 1994, Vladimir has been working as a Head of the Laboratory of the Supervision of the USSR (and Russia) System of Hydrochemical Monitoring and Assessment of Water Quality Data.

Akimasa Sumi obtained the undergraduate and master degrees in the department of physics, the University of Tokyo, then joined in the Japan Meteorological Agency in 1973. He has been working in numerical modeling. In 1975-1979, professor Sumi was engaged in the numerical weather prediction, and when he was staying at the University of Hawaii, he was engaged in WMONEX. When he moved to the University of Tokyo, he was engaged in TOGA and devoted himself to realize TOGA/COARE and TAO-array. He established CCSR in 1991, since then he has been working in developing a climate model and conducting research relating to the 3 Global Warming. Now, he has been working for integrating disciplines and creating a “Sustainability Science”.
He was a member of TOGA SSG and CLIVAR SSG. He was also a member and the Officer of JSC/WCRP. He was LA of Chapter 8 in IPCC WG1-AR4.