Francisco de Asís Silva Bátiz, PhD.

Paco has been a full time researcher and professor at DEDSZC for the last 21 years, and was recently promoted Department Head. He completed his M.S. at the University of Guanajuato, and his Ph.D. at the University of Guadalajara. Paco was one of the pioneers of marine turtle conservation on the Costalegre with more than 25 years experience. Since 1998 he has been working on integrated costal zone management along the coast of Jalisco, which is the topic of his dissertation, making him the go-to guy for Costalegre conservation.

He has presented at numerous national and international conferences and published articles in scientific journals, as well as contributing to a recent book on the biology of the Costalegre coastal zones. Paco is also an active member of such organizations as Long Term Ecological Research-Mexico (Mex-LTER), Marine Turtle Specialist Group at IUCN, among other national and international groups.  Paco is largely responsible for the naming of 7 mangrove ecosystems along the Costalegre as Ramsar sites in 2008.  This puts these sights much more in the limelight for international conservation and research, providing them a much need extra buffer of protection.