Professor Federica Di Palma is a Principal Investigator in the Bioeconomy Cluster Project. She is a Professorial Fellow of Biodiversity in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia and Director of the BRIDGE Colombia global network of researchers across the UK and Colombia. Professor Di Palma leads a number of research programmes aimed at understanding the evolution of complex traits and the regulatory processes underlying evolutionary change. She has also implemented several research programmes for countries on the DAC list aimed at building partnerships, generating genomic resources and delivering technical training events in genomics and informatics. Professor Di Palma received her Ph.D. in Immunogenetics from the Institute for Animal Health and the University of Reading. Previously, she was at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard where she served as Assistant Director of Vertebrate Genome Biology, and remains a visiting scientist.

Silvia Restrepo is a Principal Investigator in the Bioeconomy Cluster Project. She is a full professor at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá Colombia. Silvia is a plant pathologist with more than 20 years of experience as a researcher working with farmers and scientist to develop new cassava and potato varieties resistant to several diseases. She has been the leader of several projects, has advised more than 30 Masters and 10 Ph.D students. Nowdays, she is the Vice President for research and creation at Universidad de los Andes and has helped the university in improving its research and creation impact in Colombia and internationally.

Professor Kerry Turner specialises in environmental economics, coastal zone and wetland management, conservation economics and waste management research. He has published widely (300 publications) on these subjects including a number of best selling texts.

Felipe García is co investigator in the Bioeconomy Cluster Project. He currently works as the Biodiversity Sciences Program Coordinator at Humboldt Institute. He has 20+ years of experience in conservation, knowledge and sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources. He is skilled in carrying out programs, projects and governance processes with different stakeholders: public and private institutions, NGO’s, local communities, indigenous people and afro-descendent communities.

Microbiologist with a doctorate in Biochemical Engineering with experience in industrial microbiology. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Universidad de los Andes.

José de Vega is a Fellow at Earlham Institute (EI), delivering a research programme in agricultural biodiversity and genomics. His interests lie with genomics, bioinformatics and breeding; at the core of this research is forging effective partnerships with plant breeders, researches and gene banks. Among his main objectives, is to actively contribute to the Global Development Goals (SDGs) and EI’s international development strategy, where he applies multidisciplinary Agri-tech research to help feed a changing world. He is keen to engage with researchers and stakeholders and strongly supports collaborative, open-source principles in science and its data.

Silvia Ferrini is a Co Investigator in the Bioeconomy Cluster Project. Dr. Ferrini is an applied economist with a long track record of research experience. Her research interests are applied economics, non-market evaluation methods, discrete choice models and experimental design techniques.

Head of Training, EMBL-EBI. Cath joined EMBL-EBI in 2002 to develop the outreach programme, and extended her responsibilities to include training in 2006. Her team now coordinates a wide-ranging portfolio of training activities reaching tens of thousands of individuals each year. She contributes to a number of international projects including CABANA (which she leads), EOSC-Life, BioExcel and CINECA. She is co-chair of the Education Committee for the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB) and sits on the Board of Directors for ISCB. She is a member of the advisory board for the Crick African Network. Cath has a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Socio-economist. Marije is an Assistant Professor at School of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Southampton. She is specialised in analysing the well-being and welfare effects of ecosystem services changes, using monetary and non-monetary valuation methods.

Agroindustrial Production Engineer, PhD in Engineering with Emphasis on Natural Products Valuation. Experience in formulation, management and execution of projects on issues related to research, innovation, technological development, product development and adaptation of new technologies with an emphasis on products obtained from biodiversity in a sustainable way, in companies associated with the agri-food sector.

Asociación Empresarial para el Desarrollo de la Orinoquia, ASORINOQUIA, is a private non-profit organization of a Trade Union nature, created by a group of businessmen in the region, to promote and support strategic initiatives that seek regional well-being and development, with emphasis in equity, which has been registered with the Villavicencio Chamber of Commerce since 2010.

President of the SAC (Sociedad de Agricultores de Colombia), since March 2017. The SAC is the largest farmers association in Colombia, which groups 22 different sectors of production representing 73% of the agricultural GDP of Colombia.