Luisa Maria Diele Viegas

Biography

Luisa Maria Diele-Viegas is a Brazilian ecologist and transdisciplinary scientist whose work bridges biodiversity, conservation, and inclusive scientific collaboration. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Michigan and a Courtesy Senior Research Associate I at the University of Oregon. Additionally, she is a permanent professor in the Graduate Program in Ecology at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, and a collaborator professor in the Graduate Program of Zoology at the State University of Santa Cruz, Brazil. She leads the BioDivA Lab, a decentralized and virtual research community designed to foster collaboration across disciplines, cultures, and geographies.

She serves as Chair of the Brazilian Association for Ecological Science and Conservation (ABECO; 2025–2027) and of the Brazilian National Chapter of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD; 2025–2028), where she also serves as a Regional Member of the Executive Committee (2025–2029). She is President-Elect of the Society for Conservation Biology North America (SCBNA; 2026–2028) and a Council Member of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB; 2025–2029). She is a Young Affiliate of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA), where she coordinates Theme 2, Strengthening the Science and Research Ecosystem, and co-leads the Open Science Strategic Group and the Antidiscrimination Committee.

Her research integrates ecophysiology, ecological niche modeling, and conservation biology to understand how organisms respond to environmental change and to support evidence-based biodiversity governance. Beyond her academic contributions, she is committed to building open, collaborative, and transdisciplinary approaches that value local and traditional knowledge, aiming to transform how science engages with global challenges.