Marcelino Avila, a citizen of Belize, was born on January 25, 1947, in Orange Walk Town. In 1972, he married Emiliana Avila, and they are blessed with son Nazim, daughters Gina and Janine, and eleven grandchildren. He graduated in 1964 from Muffles College, earned the BA in Sociology and Economics (1968) at John Carroll University in Cleveland, USA, and an MSc in Community Development (1975) and PhD in Agric Economics (1978) at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA.
Dr Avila is a respected international scientist, wіth over 20 years of experience, as member of interdisciplinary teams, i.e., small farm crop and livestock systems in Central America, farming systems/on-farm research in the communal areas of Zimbabwe, and agroforestry system development in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia (mainly India). As an economist, he specialized on characterization of traditional land use systems, ex-ante analysis of improved technologies, and assessment of the socio-economic impact of R&D on productivity, profitability, food security, and sustainable development.
Dr Avila has served as professor at graduate and post-graduate levels. As an extension of his research, he was always involved in lecturing and advising young professionals on thesis research. His teaching career started with 5 years at St Johns Junior College in Belize City, 6 years on production economics at CATIE, an academic year in international agriculture at Cornell University, and 3 years in agroforestry systems research at the Autonomous Universities of Yucatan and Chapingo in Mexico. Over those years, at least 20 MSc and 4 PhD students completed their degrees with Dr Avila as their main advisor.
His team leadership and management experience extended over 20 years with assignments at Centro Agronómico de Investigacion y Ensenanza (CATIE) in Costa Rica (2 years) , International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Zimbabwe (4.5 yrs.), adviser and then CEO of the Ministry of Agric/Fisheries and Cooperatives of Belize (6 yrs), at the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Kenya (7 yrs) and Mexico (3 yrs), FAO in Rome (4 yrs), Caricom Secretariat in Guyana (1.3 yrs), and EU technical assistance in Belize (4 yrs) and Malawi (4.5 yrs).
Dr Avila has produced over 90 scientific and technical publications on his research, R&D methodologies, team leadership experience, and development topics of public interest. In addition, he has led the authoring over 30 major R&D project proposals successfully funded in developing countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, south-east Asia, and in Belize.
Since December 2020, Dr Avila works as senior policy advisor in the Office of the Prime Minister. He joined Galen’s Board of Trustees in February 2022.