Dino Barajas focuses his practice on domestic and international project development and finance, with particular emphasis on Latin American infrastructure projects, debt financings and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Barajas regularly represents lenders, investors and developers in a wide range of domestic and international project financings in the energy, power, infrastructure and commercial sectors, as well as in traditional banking, structured finance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, asset finance, joint ventures and venture capital transactions. His clients include commercial lenders, institutional investors, investment funds, project sponsors, and public and private companies. Mr. Barajas has worked on transactions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States, Yemen and elsewhere.

Mr. Barajas was recognized as one of the “Top 25 Clean Tech Lawyers in California” by the Daily Journal in 2011 and as one of “10 Innovative Lawyers in the US” in by Financial Times 2010. Mr. Barajas was recognized by California Lawyer Magazine as “Attorney of the Year (Energy)” in 2004.

Mr. Barajas has led the closings of several projects and financings which have been recognized by several publications as “Deals of the Year”.

Mr. Barajas is recognized (one of only three California lawyers) in The International Who’s Who of Project Finance Lawyers, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010 for his accomplishments and is recognized by Chambers & Partners USA as a “Leader in the Field of Project Finance” in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Mr. Barajas is a member of the State Bar of California. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in Communication Studies and the Business Emphasis Program from the University of California, Los Angeles. Mr. Barajas is fluent in Spanish.

Kelly is a fourth year PhD student at the Center for Tropical Research.

Learn more about his work with the Bird Genoscape Project below:

• Burrowing Owl
• Tricolored Blackbird

Lawrence Bender is a film producer who has a career that spans three decades of producing highly successful films with worldwide box office cumulative of over a billion dollars. His films to date, including such hits as Inglorious Bastards, Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting, have been honored with 36 Academy Award nominations, including three for Best Picture, and have won nine. His film An Inconvenient Truth, which raised unprecedented awareness about climate change, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Bender just wrapped his next movie, Roll, which filmed in Tunisia. In 2021 Bender produced The Harder They Fall starring Idris Elba, Regina King, Jonathan Majors, LaKeith Stanfield, Zazie Beetz and Delroy Lindo. Also in 2020, Bender produced two short films; the Peabody winning animated short film, Cops and Robbers and the Academy Award winning short film Two Distant Strangers. Other films include, Neil Jordan’s Greta (2019), Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (2016), Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016), Innocent Voices (2004), The Mexican (2001), Anna and the King (1999), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2004). Lawrence has also produced, Safe; Havana Nights: Dirty Dancing 2; Knockaround Guys; A Price Above Rubies; White Man’s Burden; Killing Zoe; and Fresh.

His documentary, Countdown To Zero, featuring Tony Blair, Presidents, Musharef, Gorbachev, De Klerk and Carter among others, details the urgent risk posed by proliferation, terrorism, and accidental use of nuclear weapons. Countdown To Zero was an official selection out of competition at the Cannes film festival. It screened at the United Nation hosted by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Michael Douglass. It also screened at CIA headquarters to over 500 operatives and the key directors. Bender traveled with the movie around the world to screen it in places like Kazakhstan and India as well as many high-level screenings in Washington DC.

Bender has a long list of Television credits including four seasons of the series Roswell New Mexico. He also produced the Netflix limited series Seven Seconds (2019) starring Regina King who won the Emmy for best actress, and the Starz limited series Flesh and Bone (2015).

I study population dynamics, spatial ecology, and predator-prey interactions of wildlife. This includes studying viability and spatial processes in a small, inbred population in the Santa Monica Mountains in collaboration with the National Park Service, a project that I started as a La Kretz postdoc.

I also study hybridization dynamics between wolves and coyotes in Ontario, Canada in collaboration with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. In Nebraska, I am working with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission studying population dynamics, spatial ecology, and predator-prey interactions with bighorn sheep, mule deer, and elk.

All of my work combines population, behavioral, molecular, and landscape ecology and involves intensive field studies around the world. My work often leads to real-world solutions to pressing wildlife conservation issues: one example is the ongoing work on the Liberty Canyon wildlife overpass on the 101 freeway that was motivated by my postdoc project.

 

Selected Publications:

Benson, J.F., Sikich, J.A., S.P.D. Riley. 2020. Survival and competing mortality risks of mountain lions in a major metropolitan area. Biological Conservation 241

Benson, J.F., Mahoney, P.J., Wickers, T. W. et al. 2019.  Extinction vortex dynamics of top predators isolated by urbanization. Ecological Applications. 29.

Benson, J.F., Jorgensen, S.J., J.B. O’Sullivan, Winkler, C., White, C., Garcia-Rodriguez, E., Sosa-Nishizaki, O Lowe, C.G. 2018. Juvenile survival, competing risks, and spatial variation in mortality risk of a marine apex predator. Journal of Applied Ecology 55:2888-2897.

Benson, J.F., Loveless, K.M., Rutledge, L.Y., Patterson, B.R. 2017. Ungulate predation and ecological roles of wolves and coyotes in eastern North America. Ecological Applications 27:718-733 (Cover Article).

Benson, J.F., Mahoney, P.J., Sikich, J.A., Serieys, L.E.K., Pollinger, J.P., Ernest, H.B., Riley, S.P.D. 2016. Demographic, genetic, and landscape interactions threaten viability of a large carnivore in a major metropolitan area. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 283 (Cover Article)