ADRIANA ARÁNGUIZ
Adriana Aránguiz is a Chilean ecologist and Associate Professor at the Environmental Resources Department at Universidad de Tarapacá in Arica. Her research interests include the study of ecology of aquatic invertebrates populations and communities from the Atacama Desert and Andean Altiplano, the experimental ecology of zooplankton, ecotoxicology and paleolimnology. Her research focus is on understanding the changes in the structure and functionality of aquatic communities, and phenotypic plasticity of aquatic populations in response to extreme environmental pressures and extractivism.
JIMENA CRUZ MAMANI
Jimena Cruz Mamani is an Atacameño-Lickanantay woman descendant from Puna shepherds. Her work for more than two decades has sought to value the work in her community, valuing the Indigenous Knowledges in which she was trained in her community and the academic knowledge she acquired in her studies. Her contributions have been part of scientific and community projects, collaborating in reports, consultations where she has contributed from her life experience, advocating for more inter and pluricultural work. She works in the Collections and Conservation unit of the Institute of Archaeological Research and Museum of San Pedro de Atacama.
RUDECINDO CHRISTIAN ESPÍNDOLA
Rudecindo Christian Espíndola is a Lickanantay man from Soncor. He is a surveyor and researcher working with local arrieros (muleteers), and on the repatriation of Atacameño Indigenous remains. He is the territorial coordinator of the Territory and Water Unit, Lickan Antay Community of Toconao. He is a farmer of the Atacameño Association of Farmers and Irrigators of Soncor and Lickanantay representative to the Climate Change Action Plan for the Northern Macro Zone in Chile. He has worked as an Indigenous environmental activist in defence of the high Andean salt flats and environmental issues in Toconao territory.
FÉLIX GALLEGUILLOS AYMANI
Félix Galleguillos Aymani is a Lickanantay man from Taira, Alto Loa. He is an environmental engineer, former university leader, former leader of the Lickanantay Taira Community and former elected member of the Chilean Constitutional Assembly (2021-2022). He has worked for years with and for Indigenous communities on environmental issues in the Antofagasta region. He was until 2024 an Environmental Assessor at the Territory and Water Unit of the Lickanantay Community of Toconao. He is currently director of CONADI, Corporación Nacional de Desarrollo Indígena and is pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at UCN-UTA.
EDITH PARRA ESPÍNDOLA
Edith Parra Espíndola is a Lickanantay woman, a sociologist, and an experienced manager and facilitator of projects in and for Lickanantay communities on Indigenous development, community tourism. She is General Coordinator of the Unidad de Pertenencia y Defensa Territorial de Toconao (UPDT). Former coordinator of the Pedagogical Innovation for Gender Equality project (UN Women's Indigenous Program), founding member of the Yatiña Indigenous Women's Service Cooperative and was the Andean School (UCN 2023-2024).
JOSÉ SÁNCHEZ
José Sánchez is one of the historic leaders of one of the three unions of fishermen and shellfish divers in the city of Mejillones, in northern Chile, with more than 50 years of fishing in his body. He started this activity when he was very young, part of a family trade that began at the age of 14, and by the age of 17, he was already a professional fisherman. He has seen the transformation of his town of Mejillones with the installation of the fishing industry, and then energy companies during the military dictatorship in the 1980s, to later see how in the 1990s Mejillones was filled with thermoelectric plants initiating an era of depredation and privatisation of the sea, open contamination, with the consequent precariousness of artisanal fishing.
CAMILO SANZANA
Camilo Sanzana is a geographer and a musician from Arauco, in the Biobío Region, Chile. His love for Andean culture led him to live in Toconao, San Pedro de Atacama, where he was able to develop his profession by helping to create the Territory and Environment Unit of the Lickan Antay Community of Toconao, where they have currently positioned themselves in environmental management and defence of the ancestral Atacama territory through a transdisciplinary team, incorporating alliances with NGOs, academic research centres and other Indigenous organizations. He currently continues to work on strengthening this environmental community project, alternating with musical projects in collaboration with artists such as Soledad Ulloa and Vientos del Norte, as well as in research on territory and soundscape, in collaboration with groups from the Tubul-Raqui Wetland Nature Sanctuary and the Birds and Voices project of the Hualpén Peninsula Sanctuary.
ELIZABETH TEJERINA
MILLARCA VALENZUELA
Millarca Valenzuela is a Chilean geologist with a PhD in Geological Sciences and an international expert on meteorites. She is a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the Universidad Católica del Norte in Antofagasta, Chile, and a researcher at the Centro de Astrofísica y Tecnologías Afines CATA and the Instituto Milenio de Astrofísica MAS. Asteroid 11819 is named after her for her contributions to the field of meteoritics in Chile, South America and Latin America. She was inspired to embark on a spiritual and intellectual journey by the awe-inspiring night skies she observed from her birthplace in Antofagasta. Situated on the edge of the vast Atacama Desert and bathed in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Antofagasta was the perfect setting for her cosmic contemplations. Her first literary publication 'Los ecos de mi tierra' was dedicated to the Lickanantai children and their incredible ancestral legacy. In 2024 she published with Gabriel León, the brilliant popular science book 'Meteoritos: historias entre el cielo y el suelo', which seeks to enhance the heritage value of the meteorites of Atacama for their protection.
FLORA VILCHES
Flora Vilches is an archaeologist from the University of Chile and a doctor in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Maryland – College Park. Her research has revolved around recent societies in northern Chile and their relationship with the emergence of industrial capitalism from the late 19th century onwards. She is interested in exploring the local accommodations to this global phenomenon, that are not always present in official discourses. More recently, she has also dedicated herself to studying various phenomena of the contemporary world in the city of Santiago, related to the recent political history of Chile. Many of these projects are interdisciplinary collaborations that link archaeology and the visual arts.