معرفی
Dr. Cristina Banks-Leite is an Associate Professor in Conservation Ecology at Imperial College London's Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park), part of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. She leads the CALE Lab and holds affiliations with the Ecosystems and Environment program, the Georgina Mace Centre for the Living Planet, the Grantham Institute, and the Microbiome Network. Her research focuses on biodiversity change, particularly in tropical ecosystems, addressing both drivers of species loss and strategies for biodiversity recovery through habitat restoration and innovative monitoring techniques.
Academic history includes a Ph.D. in Ecology (Universidade de São Paulo, 2009), M.Sc. in Tropical Ecology (INPA, 2004), and B.Sc. in Biology (Universidade Federal de São Carlos, 2002). She has served as a Trustee for the British Ecological Society and INTECOL, contributing to international ecological policy.
Research interests span habitat fragmentation impacts, species responses to environmental changes, and the application of robotics and bioacoustics for biodiversity assessment. Notable projects include policy-informing studies in Brazil and Costa Rica, and collaborations with restoration companies to develop biodiversity gain metrics. Her work emphasizes bridging ecological science with practical conservation solutions.
Key contributions include the BIOFRAG database for biodiversity-fragmentation analysis and advocacy for evidence-based conservation principles. Her lab integrates field experiments with computational methods to address global ecological challenges, such as ecosystem resilience in degraded landscapes and the role of functional traits in species survival.
