Dr. Richard Muallil is a Professor and the Director for Continuing Education and Extension Services in Mindanao State University – Tawi-Tawi College of Technology and Oceanography. His field of interests include small-scale fisheries, coral reef ecology, coastal resource management and climate change vulnerability. Dr. Mualli has been involved in coastal resource managament activities (e.g. assessment, capacity training technical assistance, etc) of close to a hundred coastal municipalities/cities in the Philippines. He was the recipient of the Dr. Edgardo D. Gomez (for his scientific publications) and Most Outstanding PhD Graduate awards given by the College of Science, University of the Philippines Diliman in 2015. The following year, he was also awarded Outstanding Young Scientist (OYS 2016) for Marine Science by the National Academy of Science and Technology - Department of Science and Technology and Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM 2016) for Marine Science and Conservation by JCI Philippines and the Gerry Roxas Foundation.