Dr. M. Aslam Chaudhry is an experienced Program Manager and Natural Resources Economist with expertise in developing, managing and implementing development programs within the context of water-development nexus. His policy development experience covers a combination of research and analysis, institutional development, and shaping public policy discourse for advancing the implementation of sustainable development agenda. Dr. Chaudhry is presently working as a Research Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and also serving as Chief of Party of the U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water established at the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology. Prior to joining the University of Utah, he served the United Nations Secretariat for 24+ years, where he held several managerial positions including Director of the United Nations Office for Sustainable Development in Republic of Korea; Chief of Water and Natural Resources Branch; and Senior Water Adviser. During his career with the UN, he led the coordination of several global intergovernmental and institutional development processes, and helped building durable partnerships with the governments, funding partners, technical institutes and the private sector. His work in developing countries primarily focused on enhancing their institutional and technical capacities in advancing the implementation of global water agenda. From 2006 to 2009, he served as the Secretary of the UN-Water, where he coordinated the work of 31 UN agencies in the area of water. Dr. Chaudhry holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Natural Resources Economics from Colorado State University, USA, and is the author of several papers, chapters in books, and parliamentary reports for the UN.

Mercedes Ward has a PhD and MS in anthropology, with an emphasis in human evolutionary ecology, and a BS in biology --which is to say that she came to social science via natural science. This intellectual trajectory unfolded as it did because she realized that to solve environmental problems, one has to understand something about people! As a human ecologist, Mercedes endeavors to understand humans as both biological and social beings embedded in complex webs of relationships. As a sustainable development practitioner, she endeavors to apply this understanding to improve human and environmental well-being.