Groupe de spécialistes des champignons de la CSE de l'UICN en Colombie

With interest in Conservation and phylogeny of fungi belonging to the Basidiomycota phylum, mainly the polyporoid and corticioid forms (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes). With experience in studies at different taxonomic levels, using an integrative approach to fungal biology that combines field work, mainly in the Neotropical region, description of new species, study of fungal cultures, review of generic concepts and computational studies of molecular evolution to the construction of phylogenies. Additionally, with interest in the application and use of basidiomycetes in biotechnology and bioremediation process and enzymatic evaluation of fungi whose main nutritional mode is wood degradation.

I am Assistant Professor at Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia and recently joined the mycorrhizal conservation non-profit organization SPUN (Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) as Expeditions Strategy & Planning Lead. My research integrates fungal community dynamics with ecosystem processes with a particular focus on tropical ectomycorrhizal systems. In addition to my studies in ecology, I have actively contributed to the discovery of several new tropical species of ectomycorrhizal fungi from Panama and Colombia. I completed my Ph.D. in Plant Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016. My dissertation focused on studying the ectomycorrhizal associations in a tropical montane forest in Panama. In 2016, I was awarded the Ewel Postodoctoral Fellowship at the University of Florida where I studied the evolution of ectomycorrhizal associations in tropical Juglandaceae species in the US, Central America and South East Asia. I first became interested in fungi in 2003 while working on her undergraduate thesis that focused on the morphology of the spores of ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with Quercus humboldtii in Colombia and has since been a passionate mycologist.