I am a researcher working interdisciplinarily across the disciplines of ethnobiology, biocultural diversity research and sustainability science, with a focus on Indigenous and local knowledge systems.

My research aims to understand the reciprocal relations between humans and nature. I am interested in understanding (1) the dynamic changes of Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) through space and time to support knowledge holders adaptation and resilience, and (2) the impacts of traditional management practices on the natural environement, especially plant community composition and structure. My research is often in relation with projects that partner with Indigenous and knowledge holders take a biocultural apprach to biodiversity conservation and social-ecological restoration.

Background

Biologist and ecologist by training (University of Barcelona, 2005-2011), I turned to the inter-discipline of ethnobiology during my PhD (University of Reading, 2014-2017) to study the cultural transmission of knowledge about medicinal plants in the Moroccan High Atlas. For that I mobilised ethnographic and botanical methods and research approaches and developed a collaboration with local communities and organisations. I continued to work with them after my PhD as a consultant for the NGO Global Diversity Foundation. With GDF I helped kick-off transdisciplinary research on how local communities protect the environment around them by creating and maintaining cultural landscapes.

In 2018, I received a postdoctoral fellowship (University of Oslo, 2018-2022) with the project “Nordic people and plants”. During this time I delved into historical ethnobiology in collaboration with archaeologists, historians, philologists and linguists to understand how local ecological knowledge changes though time at deep time scales (multiple centuries). By combining ethnographic, archival and linguistic data we evidenced the high dynamism of knowledge about plants. During my postdoc, I had the opportunity to be a visiting researcher at Naturalis (the Netherlands, 2019-2020) and at the Centre d’Ecologie Fontionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS, 2021-2022).

Since November 2022 I hold an IRD Junior Professorship at IMBE where I lead the 5-year project “People’s contributions to nature” (see Projects).

Awards

2022 - MSCA-Postdoctoral Fellowship « peopleC2eco »
2020 - Female researcher @the Natural History Museum of Oslo
2018 - MSCA-IF Seal of Excellence « VikingPlants »
2017 - PhD researcher of the year in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Reading