I am a conservation biologist working at the interface of wildlife ecology and the human dimensions of wildlife conservation, using tools and methods from different fields, including Conservation Psychology, Economics and Environmental Education, among others. In the short and mid-term, I want to focus my work on understanding how people make decisions about the use of natural resources, especially wildlife, how these decisions impact species and ecosystems and on identifying approaches to improve resource management. In the long term, I am interested in assessing the impact of conservation actions on biodiversity and human well-being. For my postdoc, I am studying the illegal trade of freshwater turtles in the Brazilian Amazon. I am assessing the impact of the trade on turtles and the social and economic factors influencing the trade. One of my goals is to identify priority actions and areas for turtle conservation in the region.

I completed my PhD and master's degrees in Interdisciplinary Ecology at the University of Florida and my bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences at the Federal University of Acre (Brazil). For my PhD, I assessed the factors influencing consumption of wild meat and implemented a social marketing campaign that successfully reduced wild meat consumption by urban residents in the central Amazon. For my master's, I assessed the effects of reduced impact logging on bird communities in the western Brazilian Amazon.