Member of the Linnean Society of London (since 1995). He was a Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany (2002), and the University of Minnesota, USA (2003). He served as Coordinator of the Ecology and Environment Area at CAPES/MEC and as Director of Scientific Research at the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden. He was a lead author for the first report of the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change (PBMC; 2011-2014), for the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; 2011-2014), and a coordinator for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES; 2015-2018). He was the General Coordinator of the Brazilian Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BPBES; 2015-2019), Senior Vice President of Conservation International, and Scientific Director of FBDS. He has authored numerous scientific publications on biodiversity, climate change, and sustainability. He has received two Jabuti Literature Awards in the Natural Sciences category for the books “Brazilian Biomes: Portraits of a Plural Country” and “Atlantic Forest: A History of the Future.” His most recent book is “Gaia’s Regenerators” (2019).
- Professor of Ecology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)
- Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland
- Bachelor’s in Forest Engineering from the University of Brasília