Joel Cuello is a professor of Biosystems Engineering and director of the Global Initiative for Strategic Agriculture in Dry Lands at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. A globally recognized expert in engineering of sustainable biological and agricultural systems, Cuello has designed various engineered systems, including those applied in bioregenerative space life support, industrial mass production of algae cultures, and vertical farming. He conducted his postdoctoral research as a US National Research Council postdoctoral research associate in the Controlled Ecological Life Support System Division at NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He earned his PhD degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering with minor in Chemical Engineering from Penn State, and earned two Master of Science degrees (Agricultural and Biological Engineering; Plant Physiology) also from Penn State. He is a Lifetime Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and a faculty fellow at the Innovation Center of the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. He has published over 55 refereed journal articles and 11 book chapters, and has delivered over 300 presentations around the world. Cuello is currently president of the Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering and a corresponding member of the NAST Phil.