Get to know our speakers for the 2020 Virtual MPA Conference!

Dr. Alan White joined TetraTech ARD Inc. in April 2016 to serve as the Chief of Party for the USAID Sustainable Ecosystem Advanced (SEA) Project. Alan has experience in all aspects of coastal management implementation, research, and administration from 30 years of fieldwork in Southeast Asia. He has undertaken studies on the management, conservation, ecology, and economics of coastal resource systems and marine protected areas (MPAs).  He assisted the CTI-CFF in the development of the CTI indicators and monitoring and evaluation system under the Coral Triangle Support Partnership (2009-2014) and is the founding member of the Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation, Inc. in the Philippines where he assisted to develop an MPA monitoring system. Alan has a Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii, Department of Geography.

Dr. Hazel Arceo has worked on MPAs for over two decades, starting with a project that monitored several MPAs around the country and helped develop simplified methods on reef monitoring targeted for community-based monitoring teams. She expanded this experience to coastal and fisheries management under the USAID/DAI Philippine Environmental Governance 2 Project. She has also been engaged by several development projects, such as the UNDP/DENR-BMB SMARTSeas PH Project and the BMU-GIZ Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion Project, to work on MPA and MPA network planning and development of training kits. Hazel has extensive research experience, focusing on fish biology and ecology, coral reef ecology and ecological effects of protection. She serves as the chair of the Sub-Committee on Marine Bony Demersal Fishes of the Philippine Aquatic Red List Committee (PARLC) organized by the DA-BFAR. She finished her doctoral studies at the University of Nice – Sophia Antipolis in France. She is currently an Associate Professor of the Department of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of the Philippines Cebu.

Dr. Aileen Maypa holds a Ph.D. degree in Zoology specializing in Marine Biology from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (UHM), HI, U.S.A. She further specialized in Coral Reef Ecology and Management including marine protected areas effectiveness and assisted coral reef recovery, which also include developing coral reef rehabilitation protocols and reef fish recovery research. While at UHM, she was a Fulbright scholar under the Philippine Fulbright Agriculture Scholarship Program (2006-2009) and was also granted with the Asia-Pacific Tuition Fee Differential. She also received the following scholarships: the East-West Center Degree Fellowship (2010-2012), the first Melga Torre and Buddy Gendrano Fellowship through the East-West Center (2010) and the EWC Alumni Association Scholarship (2010-2011).  After completing her Ph.D. in 2012, she returned to the Philippines and resumed working at the Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation, Inc. (CCEF), serving different roles over the years from being the Research Director, Executive Director and consultant. CCEF is a non-profit organization focusing on coastal resource management using marine protected areas as its primary marine conservation and fisheries management tool. Her work with CCEF brought her to study, protect and manage coral reef systems in  Cebu, Bohol and Negros Oriental and Siquijor Provinces at the same time engaging with the coastal communities and local government units in these areas. She was awarded as the Siquijor Province CRM Champion in 2019 during the Isla de Fuego MPA Awards. She also continued her academe work at Silliman University – Institute of Environmental and Marine Sciences (SU – IEMS) as an Adjunct Professor and researcher to this year 2020. Moreover, Dr. Maypa also actively serves as a member of the DENR – Apo Island Protected Land Scape and Seascape and in the International Union for Conservation of Nature – Species Survival Commission (IUCN -SSC) for Snapper, Bream and Grunt Specialist Group, among others. Her personal advocacy is on food security through coral reef conservation and fisheries management.