Alexandre Antonelli (born 15 August 1978)[1] is Executive 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 diversity, evolution and distribution 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] It served as inspiration for the founding of two non-profits under the umbrella of the Hidden Universe: Biodiversity, or HUB Initiative,[7] hosting the Atlantic Forest Research and Conservation Alliance.[8]
Antonelli was born and raised in Campinas, Brazil, and began his undergraduate studies in biology in Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil and the University of Geneva, Switzerland.[9][10] From there, he went on to complete an MSc in Biology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, which was awarded in 2003.[9] He remained at the university to pursue a PhD entitled Spatiotemporal Evolution of Neotropical Organisms: New Insights into an Old Riddle, awarded in 2009.[11] Since then, he has held a number of prestigious scientific positions, including postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, Switzerland,[9] Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg,[12][9] Cisneros Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, USA,[13][9] Science Advisor at the Universeum Science Centre, Gothenburg, and Scientific Curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden.[9] In 2017, Antonelli founded the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre[14] 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.[15] 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.[9]
Antonelli met his Swedish wife Anna while they were both living in Honduras. They have three children together.[9][6]
Research
Antonelli studies the diversity, distribution, evolution, threats and sustainable uses of species and develops methods to speed up scientific discovery and innovation.[9] His work focuses on the tropics, where most species occur and the threats are most acute.[9] He is also known for his work illuminating the links between climate, geology, and biodiversity, with a particular focus on the origins, evolution and maintenance of mountain diversity.[16][17][18] Antonelli has also written widely on the biodiversity of the tropical belt in the American continent, a region encompassing most of Latin America and the Caribbean called the Neotropics.[19][20][21][22] In December 2022, he co-led two sister reviews in Science on the biodiversity of Madagascar.[23][24] As part of his mutlidisciplinary research, he has been exploring the application of machine learning techniques for biodiversity research and conservation.[25][26] In 2020 and 2023, Antonelli led the State of the World's Plants and Fungi report,[27] a major international collaboration with an associated symposium.[28]
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.[29]
Plant species named
Antonelli's taxonomic work has led to the scientific description of the following new plant species:
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