About me

Federico was born and raised in Cali, Colombia. At age 19 he moved to the United States (US) to attend university. After education at the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Austin, he worked in industry as a hardware design engineer. 

Federico’s main passions were always wildlife and the outdoors, so after 4 years of engineering, he traveled for 10 months around the world and experienced firsthand the rapid and ubiquitous decline of nature. Upon his return to the US, he worked as a software consultant for over 6 years but also began his formal education in ecology to better understand the alarming scale of humanity’s encroachment upon wild places. Eventually he obtained degrees in biology, and ecology and evolution from Texas State University in San Marcos and the University of Washington in Seattle.

After his doctorate, Federico was awarded a ‘Science and Technology Policy Fellowship’ (STPF) at the ‘American Association for the Advancement of Science’ (AAAS). As a fellow, he was involved in grant management at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This was followed by a AAAS Overseas Fellowship at the USAID Mission in Mozambique where he acted as the Mission’s biodiversity advisor.

Federico’s PhD research focused on the development of mathematical models and agent-based simulations to explore the role of spatial structure on ecological and evolutionary dynamics. In addition to science, Federico is passionate about applied mathematics, signal processing, cosmology, and European history.

Specialties: 
  • Evolutionary ecology
  • Conservation biology
  • Biodiversity
  • Natural history
  • Coral reefs
  • Tropical ecology
  • Marine biology
  • Behavioral ecology
  • Biogeography
  • Project and program management
  • Field research