Dr. Roldán A. Valverde is the Director of the School of Earth, Environment, and Marine Sciences (SEEMS) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Dr. Valverde is originally from Costa Rica. He earned his undergraduate degree in Marine Biology at the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica in 1985. He initiated his professional career in 1987 working on the nesting ecology of the olive ridley sea turtle in Nancite beach, Costa Rica. His work on the "arribada" phenomenon led him to continue his studies in graduate school at Texas A&M University, where he received his Doctorate in 1996 for his work on the endocrine stress response of arribada Olive Ridley sea turtles.

Shortly after graduation he worked for the Caribbean Conservation Corporation (now the Sea Turtle Conservancy) as Field Coordinator of the green sea turtle tagging project at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. From 1997 through 2001 he conducted post-doctoral training in the Department of Biology at the University of Michigan on the molecular endocrine control of amphibian metamorphosis. In 2001 he came to Xavier University where he taught until he joined the faculty at Southeastern in 2004. He received tenure in 2010 and was promoted to full professor in 2015, and retired from Southeastern in the spring of 2024. In the fall of 2024 he became the Director of SEEMS at UTRGV. In 2016 he became Scientific Director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy. Dr. Valverde served as President of the International Sea Turtle Society in 2014, during which time he organized the International Sea Turtle Symposium in the City of New Orleans. In 2024 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Las Palmas of Gran Canaria.