Barbara Rocha Venancio-Meyer-Sand

Barbara Rocha Venancio-Meyer-Sand is a Research Associate at the Department of Forest and Nature Conservation Policy at Wageningen University. She completed her PhD in 2024 under the supervision of Prof. Zuidema and Dr. Smulders, focusing on genetic and chemical methods for timber tracing.

Her research interests center on timber authenticity verification, spatial genetic analysis of tropical tree species, and forensic applications of mass spectrometry. She has pioneered methods combining genomic data and elemental profiling to trace timber origins and combat illegal logging.

Her work spans international collaborations in Cameroon, Indonesia, and Central Africa, addressing challenges in biodiversity conservation and sustainable forestry. Recent publications highlight advancements in plastid genome analysis and multi-element wood fingerprinting.

Barbara contributed to the Genetic methods applied to tracing of tropical timber species project (2019–2024), which developed tools to combat illegal logging. Her research has been cited in policy documents and adopted by timber certification bodies.