Career Profile
Restoring natural landscapes through learning, sharing, and opening spaces for discussion. I believe in the power of syntrophic production systems, environmentally friendly technologies and practical educational processes with innovative theoretical foundations that allow a conscious and harmonious interaction between humans and nature
Education
- PhD Dissertation: “Big policies for small-scale farmers: a data-driven assessment of the coverage and environmental impact of the Sembrando Vida initiative in Mexico”
- Thesis: Water Management and its Relation with the Development of the Community of Yoactun, Quintana Roo.
- Degree project: Auxiliary irrigation and livestock farming systems Kool-Ja (translates to Water for the Milpa in Mayan).
- Thesis: Tree shifts and automata.
- Specialization: Logic, Set Theory, Dynamic Systems and Topology
Publications
Here is a list and hyperlinks to a selection of my publications that are available in the web. I also write about diverse topics in my blog
Defence presentation
Dissertation for PhD in Forestry, Faculty of Forestry, The University of British Columbia (2025)
Agroforestry Systems (2025)
Environmental Research Letters (2024)
Fire Ecology (2024)
Centro Regional Universitario Península de Yucatán de la Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID) Proyecto México para la Reducción de Emisiones por deforestación y degradación (M-REDD+), The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, Woods Hole Research Center, Espacios Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable AC (2016)
Centro Regional Universitario Península de Yucatán de la Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID) Proyecto México para la Reducción de Emisiones por deforestación y degradación (M-REDD+), The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, Woods Hole Research Center, Espacios Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable AC (2016)
Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (2017)
Instituto Internacional de Recursos Renovables A.C (2018)
Instituto Internacional de Recursos Renovables A.C (2017)
Instituto Internacional de Recursos Renovables A.C (2018)
Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (2015)
Cuadernos Personales (2016)
Centro Regional Universitario Península de Yucatán de la Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID) Proyecto México para la Reducción de Emisiones por deforestación y degradación (M-REDD+), The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, Woods Hole Research Center, Espacios Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable AC (2017)
Centro Regional Universitario Península de Yucatán de la Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID) Proyecto México para la Reducción de Emisiones por deforestación y degradación (M-REDD+), The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, Woods Hole Research Center, Espacios Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable AC (2017)
Centro Regional Universitario Península de Yucatán de la Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID) Proyecto México para la Reducción de Emisiones por deforestación y degradación (M-REDD+), The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, Woods Hole Research Center, Espacios Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable AC (2017)
Centro Regional Universitario Península de Yucatán de la Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID) Proyecto México para la Reducción de Emisiones por deforestación y degradación (M-REDD+), The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, Woods Hole Research Center, Espacios Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable AC (2017)
Latin American Landscapes Symposium. “Over the Mountain and Down the River to the Coast” (2025)
Global Land Program, Open Science Meeting, Oaxaca, Mexico (2024)
Invited speaker at Global Development Network Conference on Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, Quito, Ecuador (2023)
Best Poster of Category Award (Transitioning to Viable Policies) at the World Agroforestry Conference, Quebec City, Canada (2022)
V Congreso Internacional y XIX Congreso Nacional de Ciencias Agronómicas (2017)
Thesis for obtaining the Ms. degree in Rural Development Management, CRUPY, UACH (2017)
Thesis for obtaining the Bs. degree in Mathematics, Faculty of Sciences, UNAM (2014)
Experience
Kool-Já began as a response to the water crisis in the Yucatan and has grown to become an open source project with more than 37 prototypes installed in the region.
- Designer, programmer and trainer for the development of digital tools for information collection in the field for the Agenda de Co-Creación en Apicultura
- Database architect for the largest national effort of value chain integration Plataforma Nuup
- Coordination of the Regional Biogas Programme for the Yucatan Peninsula
- Project director: Rainwater for the rainforest wildlife and rural agro-sector – UNDP / GEF Small Grants Program.
- Grant writer
- Project director: Appropriate rainwater collection ecotechnologies to strengthen food sovereignty in Eastern Yucatan - FGRA / W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
- Coordination of rural and urban projects
- Grant writer
- Project co-director: 50 rainwater collection systems for Oaxaca - FAHHO / La Casa de la Ciudad.
Projects
This is a list of projects in which I have participated, click on the link to see the correspondent documentation
Kool Ja (see links)
- Kool Ja is the first alternative designed expressly for watering the peninsular Mayan Milpa allowing it to evolve into an agro-forestry system. It is composed by accessible infrastructure for rainwater harvesting that is installed in the highlands of the Milpa plots and has the capacity to store from 5 to 50m3 of water that are capable of providing assistance irrigation, alleviating water scarcity, thus avoiding loss due to drought, which is one of the serious problems faced by peninsular agriculture nowadays
Mapping the Damage of Tehuantepec Isthmus Earthquake
- After a great magnitude earthquake hit the Coastal Region of Oaxaca, assembled a fast response team to fly a Phantom 4 drone over the village of Ixtaltepec to make a profile high definition map of the damage.
Oaxaca Ethnobotanical Garden Math Classes
- Individually motivated to develop a two-month mathematics workshops for high-school students so that they would enjoy mathematics and discover the value and application of the field in simple and complex problem-solving. Hosted in a botanical garden, problems were created and solved in the field.
Rainwater Collection Systems in Santa Rosa, Oaxaca
- NGO Isla Urbana has designed a rainwater catchment system based in the first flow separation to purify rain that falls on rooftops and store it with human use quality. The systems can provide drinking water yearlong for more than 40 years to entire families or supply water for human use over 6 months.Designer of a project to raise funds to extend the initiative to Oaxaca. First stage consisted on 50 systems installed in houses of a poor neighborhood during the month of August 2015 funded by the Alfredo Harp Helú Foundation.Second stage consisted on a purification plant for a breast cancer hospital that has allowed the institution to fund their operation through the commercialization of high quality purified water. This stage also included 8 non-subsidized installations to individual clients.
Data for Public Policy: La cruzada nacional contra el hambre, PESA and the synergies to strengthen them (CONACYT - UACH)
- For this project I was in charge of designing, training, monitoring, mining and analyzing all research databases through KoboCollect and Qlik web platforms for data collection in 24 communities in 6 states of the country, generating recommendations for the design of public policy in hunger and poverty reduction.
U Ka' Muuk' Lu'um Agroecotechnology Research and Bioslurry Collection Centre
- Along with great collaborators (Angélica Bravo Anaya, Jorge Alfredo Pérez, Leonardo Gutiérrez, Don Genaro Euán, Jairo Torres) led the evolution of the Yucatan Regional Biogas Program (RBPY) into an integral agroecological learning center, which went beyond ecotechnology implementation to a capacity-building and technical assistance program for regional smallholder farmers. Translated the chemistry and biology principles of the biodigester byproducts (biogas and bioslurry) and adapted them to the agricultural practices, social and economic challenges of local farmers through an engaging 10-hour training that benefitted almost 100 families in its first year of implementation.