Alonso Aguirre directs the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, based in Front Royal, Va. He is an animal epidemiologist, a veternarian, and conservation activist.

Previously he was senior vice president at EcoHealth Alliance in New York, also holding different appointments at the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, Columbia University and Tufts University. After obtaining his D.V.M., he received a M.S. in wildlife ecology and epidemiology and a Ph.D. in wildlife biology and protected areas management from Colorado State University where he served as assistant professor years later. He acted as wildlife epidemiologist for NMFS Protected Species Investigations, heading and pioneering the epidemiology program for the endangered Hawaiian monk seals and sea turtles.

He authored the books Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice and Helminths of Wildlife: A Global Perspective, New Directions in Conservation Medicine: Applied Cases of Ecological Health, and published over 160 professional papers, monographs and scientific reports. He also served as co-editor and now as review editor of the new Springer journal EcoHealth. He also is a co-editor of the Journal of Wildlife Diseases and European Journal of Wildlife Research.

Aguirre is also an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at Mason.

Guido Cervone's research interests are very wide, and involve both theoretical and practical development of data mining algorithms.

He has an interest in remote sensing, and has analyzed data in many different parameters, with a primary interest in Surface Temperature.

He uses this data to look at earthquakes, hurricanes, seasonal and inter-annual phenomena such as the Monsoon and El-nino. Most noticeably, he has found statistically significant changes before earthquakes, which potentially gives a better understanding of the related processes.

"One of the major problems with remote sensing is that the always increasing number of satellites, equipped with always more precise instruments, generates a huge amount of data on a daily basis," he says. "Analyzing such amount of data is a Herculean task, which benefits enormously from automatic data mining algorithms. No person can possibly go through such an enormous amount of data, but on the other hand is possible to analyze synthesis of the data, in particular when this is in a form that is easy and practical to understand."

Cervone operates the antenna receiving station on George Mason University's Fairfax Campus. He receives data from the NOAA polar series and the Chinese Fenyung 1 series. The data is being used for hurricane studies, and often used by local stations for their weather forecasts.

Gillevet has been the lead scientist at the Environmental Biocomplexity and Ecology group at George Mason University since 1996. This group focuses on using state-of-the-art molecular techniques to study problems in molecular environmental sciences and genomic evolution. Gillevet is also the director of Mason’s new MicroBiome Analysis Center where he and his team of researchers are studying bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa within the human body. The effect of these organisms on human health will be a major focus of research at the center where investigators will explore microbial imbalances on or within the gut, mouth, respiratory tract and urinary and reproductive systems.

Prior to joining Mason, Gillevet was the technical director of the University of Illinois’ Center for Prokaryotic Genome Analysis from 1988 to 1990 and served as the director of Harvard University’s Harvard Genome Laboratory from 1990 to 1993. He established an integrated fluorescent sequencing facility at the National Center for Human Genome Research from 1993 to 1996. Gillevet holds a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Manitoba. His research interests include molecular environmental biology, molecular evolution, genomics, Crohn’s Disease, and bioinformatics.

 Light is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. A globally recognized environmental ethicist – specializing in the ethical dimensions of environmental policy, restoration ecology, and, more recently, climate change – he has authored, co-authored and edited 17 books on environmental ethics, philosophy of technology, and aesthetics, including "Environmental Values" (2008) and "Reel Arguments: Film, Philosophy and Social Criticism" (Westview 2003). Light is also co-editor of the journal Ethics, Place, and Environment and serves on the editorial boards of Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values, Ecological Restoration, Philosophical Practice and Theoria. He is currently finishing a book on the ethics of restoration ecology in a changing climate.

Maibach works as a "climate coach" to help organizations such as government agencies and companies communicate their positions on climate change. He is an experienced public health advocate and social change professional. Using social science research methods such as surveys and interviews, his center tries to engage public and policy makers in becoming part of the solution for climate change. Maibach is the author of the book "Designing Health Messages: Approaches from Communication Theory and Public Health Practice," which is widely used by academics and practitioners. He recently published a study that surveyed 133 local health department directors on their perceptions of and preparedness for climate change