Andrea C. Encalada is an Ecuadorian Professor at San Francisco de Quito University, Director of the Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, and Co-director of the BIOSFERA Research Institute. Dr. Encalada is also an adjunct Professor of the Geography Department of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Dr. Encalada holds a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University, USA, and worked as postdoctoral fellow at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. She is also a member of the Ecuadorian Academy of Sciences and board member of Jocoto Conservation Foundation. Dr. Encalada’s research is focused mainly on the ecology of tropical rivers, and has a special interest in population, community and ecosystem responses of lotic ecosystems to climate change, and the development and application of bioindicators of pollution and other anthropogenic disturbances in tropical rivers. Currently she is part of the Andean-Amazon Free Flowing Rivers initiative and also a member of the Amazon Citizen Science group.

“Down from the Andes, the river flows and inundates the largest tropical forest in the world. Beautiful, complex, and diverse, the Amazon is fundamental for the functioning of the Biosphere. We should work with no dismay to recognize and protect it”