Participating researchers ICN-UN

Gloria Galeano (Steering commitee member)

A staff member at Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, which she has headed during the last three years. Her research focuses on the flora of Colombia, particularly palms, a group she has studied intensively from various perspectives, including taxonomy, ethnobotany, natural history, and conservation. She has published extensively on palms, and has explored Colombia and other Neotropical countries. She has also studied regional floras, local plant names and uses, and since 2000 she leads the assessment of the conservation status of Colombian flora. She taught several courses and supervised many graduate and undergraduate theses, and published many scientific papers and books.

Rodrigo Bernal

Botanist with a long experience in research on palms and plant-people interactions. He studied ecology and sustainable use of several important palms, and monitored conservation status of palms for the past 20 years. He published many papers on taxonomy, ecology, and conservation of palms, and is co-author of Field Guide to the Palms of the Americas. His research on sustainable use of palms has set the foundations whereupon strong Colombian decisions on palm management have been made. He taught several courses and supervised many theses. He is Editor of the Catalogue Colombian Plants.