Sandra Díaz

Sandra Díaz is an ecologist interested in plant functional traits and syndromes, their effects on ecosystem properties, their contributions to human quality of life, 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 practical implementation of the concept of functional diversity and its effects on ecosystem properties and benefits to people. She combines her ecology studies with interdisciplinary work on how different societies value and reconfigure nature, having spearheaded transformative conceptual frameworks favouring pluralistic collaborations in environmental knowledge and action, including the notion of nature’s contributions to people.

She founded Núcleo DiverSus on Diversity and Sustainability, co-founded the Global Communal Plant Trait Initiative TRY, and  co-chaired the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. She is a Foreign Fellow of the British Royal Society, among other scientific academies, and has received several international scientific awards, including the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2021), and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Medal (2022). Her permanent home is in Córdoba, Argentina, where she is a Professor at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and a Senior Principal Investigator of CONICET.