Carol Wise joined the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California in 2002 after spending eight years on the Faculty at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. She specializes in international political economy and development, with an emphasis on Latin America. She has written widely on trade integration, exchange rate crises, institutional reform, and the political economy of market restructuring in the region. Wise’s recent publications include Unexpected Outcomes: The Quick Rebound of Emerging Economies from the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis (co-edited with Leslie Armijo and Saori Katada, Brookings Institution Press, 2015), and “Good-bye Financial Crash, Hello Financial Eclecticism: Latin American Responses to the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis,” Journal of International Money and Finance (co-authored with Manuel Pastor, 2015). Prof. Wise is the 2015 recipient of the Fulbright-Masaryk University Distinguished Chair Grant, Czech Republic.

Sergio Palencia Frener earned his B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology from Del Valle University in Guatemala. He then earned his M.A. in Sociology and Critical Theory by the “Alfonso Vélez Pliego” Institute at Puebla University, Mexico. He studies the historical relationships between Indigenous Communities and the Guerrilla Army of the Poor, between 1972 and 1982 in Highland Guatemala. He has published the following books: Fernando Hoyos and Chepito Ixil, Encounter and Revolutionary Communion (FGT, 2013), Racism, Capital and State in Guatemala (URL, 2013), Mesoamerica, concept and struggle: historical approach, 1920-2010 (URL, 2014). He has also published several essays in journals in Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, France. He is the founder and coordinator of the Mesoamerican Studies Congress (2014, 2016) which strives to stimulate War and Memory studies in this region. In 2014m he presented at two conferences – the Mora Institute and UNAM: “Indigenous Rebellion in the Highlands, 1980-1982” and “Guerrilla patterns in Huehuetenango and Quiché, 1979-1980.”

Sofía Duyos is a lawyer specializing in Human Rights. She earned her degree in Law from the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), where she studied Criminal Law, Human Rights, and Development Cooperation. Since 2000, she has worked in the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala, conducting research on human rights violations, advocacy, and awareness, including research on violence against women. She has written several articles and coordinated various publications in human rights. During the last five years she has been one of the lawyers litigating the case opened in the Audiencia Nacional Court for genocide against the Mayan people in Guatemala. She has also served as advisor to the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH), one of the two Guatemalan organizations that served as joint plaintiffs in the case against the former President Rios Montt and his director of intelligence Rodriguez Sanchez.

Manolo E. Vela Castaneda
Doctor en Ciencia Social con especialidad en Sociología por El Colegio de México. Es profesor investigador del Departamento de Ciencias Sociales y Políticas de la Universidad Iberoamericana, Ciudad de México. Ganador del Premio 2009 Academia Mexicana de Ciencias a la mejor tesis de doctorado. Es miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores de México. Trabaja en su proyecto de investigación: “Desaparecidos. Derechos civiles y políticos en condiciones de alto riesgo, las lógicas del terror estatal, y las luchas por el acceso a la justicia. Guatemala, 1983-2014.” Es profesor de los cursos: Dominación y resistencia desde abajo. Teorías y métodos para el análisis de procesos históricos; Sociología histórica y comparativa; Interpretaciones sobre el cambio; Teoría social clásica; y, Métodos cualitativos. Es autor de: Los pelotones de la muerte. La construcción de los perpetradores del genocidio guatemalteco (El Colegio de México, 2014); y editor de: Guatemala, la infinita historia de las resistencias (Magna Terra, 2011). Ha ganado becas de investigación en University of Notre Dame, Tulane University, University of Texas at Austin. Como intelectual público es columnista en la edición dominical de El Periódico de Guatemala.