I’m an evolutionary biologist interested in the ancient history of biodiversity and its conservation. At my lab, we focus on how diversity in species and traits arises, and on helping shape policy to conserve ecosystems today and into the future.

Highlights

1.      Named National Academies of Sciences Education Fellow in the Life Sciences in 2012
   

2.     My work has been the first to systematically and independently examine environmental impacts of illicit crop production and anti-drug policy, documenting threats to biodiversity, and quantifying indirect deforestation from coca production for the first time.
   

3.     Named Professor of the Month, Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners on Jan 2010
   

4.     Invited to highly selective Fifth Early Career Scientists Symposium at the University of Michigan in 2009
   

5.     Official adviser to the United Nations Office of Drug and Crime since 2007
   

6.     Discovered reverse colonization from islands to continent among mammals
   

7.     Pioneered biological surveys in 1998 that led to the declaration of  the national park Awka Wasi in the southeastern Andes of Colombia in 2007
   

8.     First modern biologist to survey the Serranía de San Lucas in 1998
   

9.     Published in, among others, Science, Biological Reviews, Environmental Science and Technology, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Genomics, and Conservation Biology
   

10.     Research featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Le Figaro, The Guardian, Sueddeutsche, Nature, Science, National Geographic, Scientific American,  The Scientist, Discovery News, The Ecologist, Reuters, and Mongabay, among many more
    

11.     Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Explorers’ Club, and FAHSS, among others
    

Training

Postdoctoral    2004-2005    University of Arizona, Ochman Lab

Postdoctoral    2005-2006    American Museum of Natural History, Perkins Lab

Education

PhD    2001-2004    Columbia University, NSF-funded DDIG: Historical biogeography of the Antilles: Earth history and phylogenetics of endemic Chiropteran taxa

Certificate in Environmental Policy Studies    1998-2001 Columbia University, Access to genetic resources under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

MA    1998-2000    Columbia University, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

BSc 1991-1997    Universidad del Valle (Cali, Colombia), Honors thesis: Molecular markers associated to resistance to the Hoja Blanca virus (HBV) in rice (Oryza sativa, L)

Download articles on deforestation published as M.D. Álvarez, access hard-to-find publications via the Mendeley profile, or access citations here. Visit my personal page.