Alexandre Antonelli (born 15 August 1978)[1] is Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,[2] UK, Professor of Biodiversity and Systematic at the University of Gothenburg,[3] Sweden, and Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford.[4] He is a biodiversity scientist working to understand the evolution and distribution of the diversity of life on Earth and how best to protect and sustainably use it.[5] His first popular science book, The Hidden Universe: Adventures in Biodiversity, was published in July 2022.[6]
Antonelli was born and raised in Campinas, Brazil, and completed his undergraduate studies in biology in Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil and the University of Geneva, Switzerland.[7][8] From there, he went on to complete an MSc in Biology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, which was awarded in 2003.[7] He remained at the university to pursue a PhD entitled Spatiotemporal Evolution of Neotropical Organisms: New Insights into an Old Riddle, awarded in 2009.[9] Since then, he has held a number of prestigious scientific positions, including postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, Switzerland,[7] Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg,[10][7] Cisneros Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, USA,[11][7] Science Advisor at the Universeum Science Centre, Gothenburg, and Scientific Curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden.[7] In 2017, Antonelli founded the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre[12] and was the Director until 2019 when he moved to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to take up his current position as Director of Science.[13] He was also the founder and chairman (2015-2020) of knowme.earth, a mobile platform for logging, identifying, and sharing information about all species on Earth.[7]
Antonelli met his wife Anna while in Sweden and they have three children together.[7]
Research
Antonelli studies the distribution, evolution, threats and sustainable uses of species and develops methods to speed up scientific discovery and innovation.[7] His work focuses on the tropics, where most species occur and the threats are most acute,[7] and he is also known for his work on mountain diversity.[14][15][16] Antonelli has also written widely on the biodiversity of the Neotropics.[17][18][19][20] In December 2022, he co-authored two sister reviews in Science on the biodiversity of Madagascar.[21][22] He has recently been exploring the application of machine learning techniques for biodiversity research and conservation[23][24] In 2020 and 2023, Antonelli led the State of the World's Plants and Fungi report,[25] a major international collaboration with an associated symposium.[26]
He has been named on the Web of Science / Clarivate ‘Highly Cited Researchers’ list, which identifies pioneering researchers in the top 1% of their field, every year since 2020.[27]
Plant species named
Antonelli's taxonomic work has led to the scientific description of the following new plant species:
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