Mónica Carvalho

Mónica Carvalho is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan and an Assistant Curator at the Museum of Paleontology. Her research focuses on understanding plant and tropical ecosystem evolution through geologic time, particularly in tropical South America. She employs observational and experimental methods to study paleobiology, leaf-insect interactions, and climate change impacts on tropical flora.

Education: B.S. in Biology (Universidad de Antioquia, 2009), M.S. in Geosciences (Pennsylvania State University, 2011), Ph.D. in Plant Biology (Cornell University, 2017).
Research emphasizes fossil seed analysis (e.g., discovering 20–60 million-year-old grape species in Panama/Colombia/Peru) and Antarctica’s Cretaceous flora. Her work bridges deep-time ecology with modern climate science.

Publications include high-impact studies in Nature Plants and University of Michigan news features. Collaborates widely to document evolutionary responses to environmental shifts, particularly post-Cretaceous extinctions.