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Yadvinder Mahli
Tropical forests in the Earth System
Yadvinder Mahli is a Professor of Ecosystem Science at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. He is an ecosystem scientist focused on exploring the functioning of the biosphere and its interactions with global change. Specifically, his research seeks to understand the impact of global change on the ecology, structure and composition of all kind of terrestrial ecosystems, although he has a particular fascination for tropical forests. Yadvinder’s research addresses fundamental questions about ecosystem function and dynamics, whilst providing outputs of direct relevance for conservation and adaptation to climate change. Currently, he is the Program Leader of the Ecosystems Group at the Environmental Change Institute, which runs an extensive research program in Asia, Africa and the Amazon and Andes regions, and encompasses a broad spectrum of disciplines ranging from the natural sciences through to social sciences, policy and governance. He is also the Director of the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, a network of university departments, NGOs and local businesses, that seeks to address the major issues facing the future of tropical forests in the 21st century.
Robin Chazdon
Getting a seat at the table: the challenge of working for forest restoration and conservation in and out of academia
Professor Robin Chazdon recently retired after 28 years of teaching at the University of Connecticut, USA. She has been studying tropical forests ecology for over 45 years. Robin conducted long-term research on the dynamics of secondary forests in Costa Rica and addressed a large number of ecological questions related to successional pathways, drivers of land-use change, and tree functional ecology. She has served as Editor-in-Chief for Biotropica, as President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), and after five years of service is now the Emeritus Executive Director of ATBC. In recent years, Robin moved into the science-policy arena in forest landscape restoration. She is the director of PARTNERS (People and Reforestation in the Tropics), an interdisciplinary research network that focuses on understanding the socio-ecological drivers of reforestation. She is a Senior Research Associate with the International Institute of Sustainability in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and is a Senior Fellow with the World Resources Institute Global Restoration Initiative, where she is working to enhance decision support tools for landscape restoration and promote natural regeneration in restoration planning.
Rodolfo Dirzo
Tropical plant-animal interactions in light of global environmental change
Rodolfo Dirzo is the Bing Professor in Environmental Sciences at Stanford and a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. His research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of species interactions in tropical ecosystems in Latin America and Africa, and on the effects of anthropogenically driven biodiversity change on evolutionary ecology. His recent research highlights the decline of animal life (“defaunation”), and how this affects ecosystem processes/services. Rodolfo also works to educate young people and local communities about science and the environment. In the San Francisco Bay Area he is involved with projects that target minorities and underprivileged groups. These programs aim to give children and young adults the chance to participate in hands-on science education, observe how science professionals operate, and hopefully inspire them in their future careers.
Lúcia Lohmann
Assembly and evolution of the Neotropical biota: Insights into research, education, outreach and conservation
Lúcia Lohmann is a Professor in the Botany Department of the University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil) and is currently a Visiting Professor at the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley (USA). Her primary research interest is to understand patterns of plant diversification and biogeography in the tropics, and to apply this information to the conservation of tropical biodiversity and ecosystems. Her research is highly integrative, combining components of systematics, ecology, evolutionary biology, and conservation. She previously served as a Councilor for ATBC, then later as President, and as of January 2019 she took over as the new Executive Director.
Brigitte Baptiste
Bridging the knowledge–action boundary in Colombia
Brigitte Baptiste is a cultural landscape ecologist and an expert on environmental issues and biodiversity in Colombia. She has had a long career in both nonprofit and academic spheres. She was a Professor at the Universidad Javeriana for over 20 years where she worked with issues related to environmental policy and the conservation of rural landscapes. As the Director of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia since 2011, Brigitte represents Colombia's scientific authority for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CITES), the International Convention on Wildlife Trade, and the SBSTTA (the Subsidiary Body of Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice). She served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on behalf of Latin America and the Caribbean (2015-2017). There, she co-chaired working groups on Indigenous and Local Knowledge, as well as on Policy Tools and Methodologies. She is also a member of the IAI's Science Policy Advisory Committee (Inter-American Environmental Initiative for Global Change) and the scientific committee of the global program PECS (Ecosystem Change and Society). She was a prominent voice advocating for a peace deal in the Colombian Civil War.