Sandra Díaz is Professor of Ecology at Córdoba National University, senior member of the Argentine National Research Council and Visiting Professor at Oxford University. She is interested in plant functional traits and syndromes, their effects on ecosystem properties and their interactions with global change drivers. She constructed the first global quantitative picture of essential functional diversity of vascular plants – the global spectrum of plant form and function.
She has advanced theory and implementation of the concept of functional diversity and its effects on ecosystem properties and benefits. She combines ecology studies with interdisciplinary work on how different societies value and reconfigure nature. She founded Núcleo DiverSus on Diversity and Sustainability, and co-founded the Global Communal Plant Trait Initiative TRY.
She co-chaired the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. She is a member of the Academies of Sciences of Argentina, USA, France, Norway, Latin America and the Developing World, and Foreign Fellow of the British Royal Society and member of the American Philosophical Society. Her awards include Margalef Prize in Ecology (2017), Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science (2019), Kew International Medal (2020) and BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Ecology and Conservation Award (2021).
This page has been updated in May 2024.
