Brigitte Baptiste

She has been a key figure in advancing the concept of socio-ecosystems, which takes an integrated approach to understanding nature and society and has been successfully applied across Colombia to protect its ecosystems. Since 2019 she has been president of the Universidad EAN, Bogotá, after serving for almost ten years as director of Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute, Bogotá, where she oversaw the development of environmental policies for Colombia’s post-conflict areas, as well as serving for more than twenty years as a professor of ecology at Javeriana University, Bogotá. A high-profile transgender woman, she has used her platform to raise awareness about the field of queer ecology, and has authored 15 books, appeared on television shows, and is a regular newspaper columnist. Baptiste was a Prince Claus Fund Laureate in 2017.