Dr Nicholas Hellmuth

Founder and President

He has an undergraduate degree, Harvard; Master’s degree Brown University; then three different post-graduate research positions at Yale University. PhD is from the University of Graz (Karl-Franzens Universitaet). Previously he was a research professor in digital photography at Rollins College (Florida) and then at Brevard Community College (Florida), and also at Universidad Francisco Marroquin (Guatemala) and BGSU (Ohio).

Flor Setina

Administrative Manager

She is responsible for all the administrative operations here in Mayan Toons. Her work is essential to different areas of the organization: supervising daily support operations of our company, planning the most efficient administrative procedures, monitoring costs and expenses to assist in budget preparation.

Vivian Hurtado

General Coordinator and Researcher

Environmental engineer, artist and nature lover. Vivian Hurtado is the current project manager of FLAAR’s divisions: Flora & Fauna and MayanToons. She hopes to promote research and educational content on Guatemala’s biodiversity and its conservation for students, teachers, children, and everyone who may be interested.

Valeria Avilés

Mayantoons coordinator and illustrator

She is an artist and illustrator with a degree in graphic design. She stands out for the ease with which she works realism in analogous techniques. However, her work in children’s illustration is not far behind, always looking for her drawings and illustrations to speak for themselves.

Josefina Sequen

Illustrator

Josefina is a digital illustrator who enjoys drawing realistic and cartoon animals like crocodiles and felines. She also assists with photography inside FLAAR and during field trips. She is a senior student on weekends and works in the office during the week.

Rosa Sequen

Illustrator

Rosa is an intern learning about digital illustration and children books. Her strenght when it comes to drawings are butterflies and other Mesoamerican amphibious. She loves the idea that her drawings could reach children in order to teach them about animal welfare and conservation.

Isabel Trejo

Illustrator

Isabel has a graphic design degree and she is an analog and digital illustrator. She enjoys nature, gets inspired by it, and loves to represent it through her art.

Andrea Bracamonte

Illustrator

With a degree in Graphic Design, Andrea works as a digital illustrator. She loves to work on nature and children illustrations. Nature being her main source of inspiration, she loves to draw amphibians, birds and beetles.

Laura Morales

Engineer in Digital Content

Laura Morales has an Engineering degree in Digital Contents, from Dongseo University, Korea. She is now Director of our long-range animation project. Laura is preparing our first-stage 3D animated videos to introduce native plants and animals from Mesoamerica to our followers. It is rare that family-friendly animations are based on field trips to the rain forests where the flora and fauna can be studied.

Paula García

Animator

Graphic designer and animator of the MayonToons team, she contributes to bring motion, actions and dynamism to the educational videos, giving life through movement to the species that these videos showcase.

Niza Franco

Animator

Niza is a graphic designer focused on branding, illustration and 2D animation. In the MayanToons division, she’s in charge of animating the characters and episodes about the species of flora and fauna found in Guatemala and Mesoamerica. She loves to evoke emotions, raise awareness and educate others through fun storytelling.

Victor Mendoza

Flora and Fauna Researcher

Environmental Engineer student, aquatic ecosystem enthusiast and lover of Guatemalan native biological diversity. He is in charge of the photographic database of FLAAR Mesoamerica. Not only does it organize it, but it also identifies the flora and fauna of the photographs we have. Because of his knowledge, he also serves as a research assistant.

Sergio D’Angelo Jerez

Flora and Fauna Researcher

Sergio is an undergraduate student in agronomy, and his current interests are focused on how to do agriculture with practices that promote both ecological conservation and economic development. At the moment, his work at FLAAR includes doing plant identification and bibliographical research. In these days he might tell you that he is the happiest when he is on expedition or when he shares his knowledge about nature.

Senaida Ba

Flora and Fauna Researcher

Senaida Ba is a bilingual Q’eqchi’ Mayan student. Her interests include photography. She is very adept at plant research, especially capable of finding rare plants deep in the rain forests. She has also done studies of inkjet printing technology in Germany, Italy, and Turkey. She will be a capable university student and we are looking for scholarship opportunities for her.

Byron Pacay

FLAAR Mesoamerica staff

Handles GPS mapping of where we hike or go in the lancha (boat) each field trip day. He also lists where we stop to take photos and what each one of us is photographing, and then has that information tabulated and ready each night.

Norma Estefany Cho cu

FLAAR Mesoamerica staff

Helps with preparing the camera equipment for each and helps in the office (and on field trips) cooking.

Belén Chacón

Flora and Fauna Researcher

Belén is a biology student, her actual interests include aquatic fauna and conservation. For the moment, her work includes the order and tabulation of useful and edible flora listed in the FLAAR bibliography and many other references, to make a complete list of useful plant species, as well as the updating of taxonomic information on species and families. She hopes to learn more about plant species and share the knowledge. She looks forward to being a part of other projects at FLAAR.

María José Rabanales

Editor & Translator

Majo is an Environmental Engineer who supports FLAAR´s Yaxha Project by editing and translating (Spanish/English) texts for the flora and fauna series. She also carries out final reviews of Yaxha´s PDF photo essays.

Alejandra Valenzuela

Flora & Fauna Researcher

Diana Sandoval

Flora and Fauna Researcher

Agricultural engineer, plant lover and botanical enthusiast. As part of the flora and fauna research team, her work is based on the collection of scientific information that shapes the reports that are posted on our pages. As an agricultural engineer my field of study is based on plants, their environment and the different tools that humans have used throughout our history to get the best out of them. The work carried out in FLAAR is focused on ethnobotany, the conservation of native species and their use, so she hopes that our work can reach a large number of people and can create awareness of the importance that plants have in the development of the communities.

Samuel Herrera

Flora & Fauna Researcher

Samuel is a biology graduate, interested in a wide range of topics like molecular biology, genetics and geographic information systems for research purposes. Samuel’s line of work covers scientific literature research, taxonomic identification/counseling of flora and fauna, and remote sensing using SIG software applied to geographic and ecological analysis. Samuel also is an avid enthusiast of wildlife photography, Mayan archeology, and Guatemala’s biodiversity conservation.

Pedro Pablo Marroquín

Flora & Fauna Researcher

Agronomic engineering student, passionate about plants and sustainability. He has an interest in the use of GIS and data analysis for the protection of the environment and the conservation of natural resources. He has been part of FLAAR Mesoamérica since 2022 and helps the team by editing and translating the valuable reports that we prepare.

Alejandra Gutierrez

Photographer

Graphic designer and photographer of FLAAR Mesoamerica, she makes expeditions alongside with Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth to incredible places to shoot big format photographs of native flora and fauna. Based on her experience, she also helps with publicity and marketing.

David Arrivillaga

Photographer and Graphic Designer

Photographer and graphic designer, David is passionate about capturing images of nature and complements the expedition team. He takes incredible pictures and video of flora and fauna and assists Dr Nicholas Hellmuth in all the expeditions. He also edits the material for print and digital media.

Pedro Pablo Ranero

Photographer and Videographer

Communication science student, cinephile and photographer, mainly focused on capturing video. Currently Pedro is editing videos about previous FLAAR research and documents on Flora, Fauna and Ecosystems.

Edwin Solares

Photographer & Videographer

Edwin is an environmental engineering student with an imperative interest in ecosystemic logic. He enjoys creating videos that not only communicate accurately on the academic but also the emotional. Wildlife adventure and a perfectly framed photograph it’s what he loves.

Juan C. Hernández

Web Designer

He is a graphic design student with knowledge of website design and programing, he assists the Webmaster with the maintenance and administrations of the FLAAR website network: adding texts and photos, managing content, etc.

María José García

Web Designer

María José is an industrial designer with experience in web design and community management. She is actually in charge of uploading content to all Flora & Fauna and MayanToons websites and keep them updated.

Paulo Nuñez

Webmaster

Paulo Núñez has taken over all webmaster responsibilities for the entire FLAAR network of websites.He is in charge of updating and reviewing the more than one thousand pages of our diverse sites with new information and photos obtained from the site visit cases, lectures, trade shows, etc.

Roxana Leal

Community Manager

Roxana is the voice of the messages, photos and videos of our documentation through the social media of FLAAR Mesoamerica and MayanToons. She has ventured into the different ecosystems of Guatemala together with the field team to document the expeditions. She has a degree in Communication Sciences and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Digital Marketing and E-Commerce. Every day dreams and works for a better world!

Since most of our staff are university students because we allow students to work the hours that are convenient for them. If they have an exam to prepare for, then they don’t need to work those days. Not many companies are flexible to allow students to arrive anytime between 6:30am and and others to work until 10 pm (if they have classes at their university in the morning). There is not space to show all former employees, but we include here a sample.

Mariana Cabrera

3D Animator and Illustrator

A creative mind that wants to use her skills to promote environmental education. In Mayantoons she has worked in illustration, character design and, at the moment, in 2D animation. She believes that, with dinamic and interactive material, we can ignite the interest of people of all ages in Guatemala and its diverse nature.

Marcella Sarti

Flora and Fauna Researcher

An environmental engineer student, Marcella Sarti is part of the research team of flora and fauna, she collects information along with bibliographies of many books to create documents with scientific and educational information which are posted on our pages. In addition, she has contributed to write storyboards for Mayantoons. Through her research, she hopes to contribute to education in Guatemala about native flora and fauna and its conservation.

Elena Siekavizza

Flora and Fauna Researcher

Environmental engineer, forests enthusiast and lover of the guatemalan native flora. She is in charge of FLAAR Mesoamerica’s photographic database. Not only does she organize it, but also performs the flora and fauna identification of the photographs we have. Due to her knowledge, she also serves as a research assistant.

Desirée Cordón

Illustrator and Communicator

Desirée has a degree in communication and works as a digital illustrator specializing in editorial and children’s illustration. She likes to be able to provide information to children about fauna and flora so that together we can take care of our environment better. She works as a freelance illustrator and is also part of the MayanToons team of illustrators.

Lucia Brolo Anchisi

Illustrator

Industrial designer and digital illustrator; she did illustrations for teaching Mayan children in rural schools to recognize the alphabet characters, associating letters to native plants and animals from their own communities. She also illustrated many of our educational MayanToons storybooks, especially on the rain forest fauna of Guatemala.

Genesis Giron

3D Animator and Illustrator

Génesis Girón is a proud member of the Mayan Toons Animation Department, she loves expressing herself through her unique creations. In addition to animation, Génesis enjoys illustration and character design. Powered by fashion, fandoms and cinema.

Erick Flores

Photographer & Graphic Designer

Erick helps preparing educational material on Neotropical flora and fauna of Guatemala. These PDFs and PowerPoint presentations are to assist students, scholars, professors, and the interested lay public both in Guatemala and around the world.

Melanny Quiñonez

Graphic Designer & Illustrator

Melanny “Cucu” is a graphic designer and illustrator for the several educational materials. She was Assistant Review Editor for evaluating and doing press reports on digital imaging.

Ximena Arriaga

Digital Library Manager

Ximena is a graphic designer in charge of scanning and digitizing all content from previews investigations about the Mayan culture by Dr. Nicholas Hellmuth so that can be available on all FLAAR’s websites.

Vivian Díaz

General Coordinator and illustrator

Vivi is an environmental engineer, who is actually doing project management for FLAAR’s divisions: Flora & Fauna and MayanToons. She is also the chief storyboard director of the department of cartoon illustrators. She loves to share her knowledge of nature and also to raise awareness through her drawings about how to take care of, preserve and appreciate nature as she does.