Dr. Benjamin A. Jones is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of New Mexico and is on the Editorial Council for the Journal of Environmental Economics & Management. Benjamin is also a UNM alum (Ph.D. in Economics, 2015). 

His research is in the area of environmental economics with a particular focus on the human health and economic implications of pollution exposure. This includes work estimating the economic damages of air and water pollution from particular sources or after natural disasters, environmental shocks, or other disruptions to ecosystem services. He has published over 35 academic articles in leading environmental economics research journals.

Dr. Jones is the co-author of the 2020 paper: “Cryptodamages: Monetary Value Estimates of the Air Pollution and Human Health Impacts of Cryptocurrency Mining” that is published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science. His work on the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency mining has appeared in The New York Times, Popular Science Magazine, The Guardian, CBS News MoneyWatch, and on the BBC World News.

Dr. Reilly S. White is the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning and an Associate Professor of Finance with tenure at the University of New Mexico. Dr. White also serves on the board of the CFA Society of New Mexico, advisor for the $4.7 Million student-run UNM Regent’s Portfolio, and leads a series of financial literacy projects in the community. Prior to his career in academia, Dr. White worked as an analyst for a large Boston-based bank, where he learned a great deal about company analysis, funding, and maintaining ethical corporate leadership. He has consulted with investment managers and municipalities on maintaining optimal portfolio strategies, particularly in response to economic challenges.

In addition to his PhD from the University of Connecticut, Dr. White graduated summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth with a degree in Finance. Dr. White has published nineteen articles in finance and financial technology in the last few years, including articles in Physica A, Journal of Corporate Finance, IEEE, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and the Journal of Banking and Finance. With his students, he co-authored Financial Literacy for Immigrants and Refugees, a free financial literacy handbook that has been translated into Spanish, Arabic, and Dari. Since 2020, Dr. White has been interviewed over 150 times by local and national media outlets on various economic and finance topics. 

Kyle Guin, a native of Aztec, NM, graduated from UNM in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Early Stage Business and Operations. At the May graduation, Kyle was one of the speakers and was honored as the outstanding senior. His undergraduate years were busy. He participated in UNM’s Innovation Strategy where he learned entrepreneurial strategies and began developing his own innovations. They included Pencil-In, a mobile calendar app, that resulted in Guin and his team being featured in a PBS NewsHour segment. Guin was also featured as the cover story in the Spring 2019 issue of the UNM Mirage.

Guin is a serial entrepreneur who exited his previous company. Recently he has spent his time as a government contractor, where he helped win over $10m in federal funding to help transfer government-developed technologies into the private sector. He recently transitioned his full-time focus to building in web3. His scope of activities includes the use of Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) in the art world.