Araceli Vargas Mena y Amezcua is advisor of the head of the National Institute of Ecology (Ministry of Environment) in Mexico. She is carrying out research regarding carbon sequestration by forest in the country, identifying and analyzing current and future barriers for the projects. She has been head of the land use planning department in the same institute and has conducted research on restoration of degraded agricultural areas, and the impact of human settlements on the natural environment.

A. Vargas Mena has a master's degree in rural and land ecology survey from the Internationall Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC) in the Netherlands and a master in environmental management and public health from MIT. She also attended post-graduate courses in Switzerland and the Netherlands on Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing Techniques applied to environmental problems.