Mónica Carvalho is a Colombian botanist and paleobiologist studying how plant and modern tropical forests evolved through geologic time. She obtained a BS in Biology from Universidad de Antioquia in 2009, a MS in Geosciences from The Pennsylvania State University in 2011, and a PhD in Integrative Plant Sciences from Cornell University in 2017. Between 2017 and 2022, Mónica worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute before joining the University of Michigan as an Assistant professor and Curator at the Museum of Paleontology. Mónica's work combines the tropical plant fossil record with experimental approaches on plant function to understand the biology of past ecosystems.
