Luis D’Croz holds a Licenciado en Biologia, Universidad de Panamá (1972), and a M.Sc. from the Universidad Autónoma de México (1974). Luis is a marine scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and a professor of marine biology at the University of Panama. His research interests focus on responses of tropical marine communities to environmental changes, the effect of upwelling and fresh-water runoff on nutrient and plankton dynamics and the alteration of the polyp-zooxanthella symbiosis in eastern Pacific corals during ENSO sea-warming events.