Julia Valentim Tavares is a Brazilian ecologist interested in tropical forest ecology, with emphasis in plant ecophysiology and tropical ecosystems sensitivity/resilience to environmental change. She holds a Ph.D. in ecology and global change from the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Uppsala University (Sweden), where she was awarded the King Carl XVI Gustaf Foundation's prize for outstanding early-career researchers. Tavares is especially passionate about Amazonia and has been studying Amazonian forests since 2011.
A key contribution from her work on this topic was recently published in the scientific journal Nature, where she revealed the biogeographic nature of drought-induced mortality risk in Amazonian forests, and how vulnerability to drought directly underpins carbon storage in such forests. In the last two years, Tavares has also dedicated her attention to understanding the complex responses of Amazonian wetland forests to environmental changes.
As a National Geographic Explorer on the Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition, she is now investigating how changes in inundation, precipitation and air temperature can affect the structure, function and diversity of Amazonian flooded forests.
Tavares is also the mother of young twins and she hopes to contribute to enhance the visibility and broaden the space for women, mothers and researchers from the Global South in Science.
