Greetings!
I am a biologist and agroecologist from Colombia interested in the construction of sustainable and fair food systems, and their implications for biodiversity conservation. I use multiple theories, methods, lines of evidence, and tools for data analysis to obtain a holistic understanding of agri-food systems, and I privilege mixed-methods and synthetic-systemic approaches to research.
My path was been everything but linear. As a biologist, I was interested in understanding the linkages between animal behavior, developmental biology, and ecophysiology of dart poison frogs. My direction changed abruptly when I had the opportunity of living in a School serving indigenous children as part of an interdisciplinary internship in the Colombian eastern valleys. Frog decision-making was complex, and inspire me to understand decision-making in people struggling to survive in a world of everlasting change.
My research in socioecological systems has been largely shaped by my PhD degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California in Santa Cruz (UCSC). I engaged in a journey to better understand the multifaceted relationships between bees, people, and agriculture in the Colombian Andes. I have worked at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia trying to better understand the interplay of agrobiodiversity, gender, and livelihoods in the post-conflict Colombian Caribbean. I have been a Carson Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Germany, which inspired me to re-explore relationships between bees and people. Then, I conducted interdisciplinary research at Tulane University to design sustainable coffee systems in Honduras. Currently, I work at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute with researchers from Chile and other world regions in the project "Co-Production of Knowledge, Technologies & Practices for Sustainable Nitrogen Management in Chile"
CV Marcela Cely Santos
Interdisciplinary research
I believe bridging different bodies of knowledge as well as different knowledge systems helps to better grasp the complexity of our world––and paths to transform it. These days I integrate elements from ethnoecology, cultural ecology and political ecology to better understand how farmers' versions of reality and ecological knowledge, along with their socio-political context, influence their relationships with the land and all other creatures with whom they co-create their territories.
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I hope to facilitate the co-production of management guidelines that integrate farmers'
innovation skills to encourage biodiverse communities in their lands. That may
help us learn "the arts of noticing, or how to love [more] a [native bee pollinator]" (Tsing)
Participatory research and science communication
I believe the most legitimate door to conservation is understanding and relating. Communicating western-scientific findings to broader audiences offers additional elements that local communities can incorporate into their ecological knowledge and nurture their "arts of noticing". But beyond that, western-scientific approaches need to be better contextualized to ask appropriate questions and have positive social impacts. Participatory research approaches promote the inclusion of the experience/expertise, perceptions, and concerns of local communities in the co-production of situated knowledge and hence, guide how western science can be harnessed for problem solving. Moreover, engaging in dialogues of knowledges in which different knowledge systems engage in equal interchange and co-learning can be a powerfuld and fair path to revitalizing and co-producing more conciliatory relationships with other co-inhabitants of the world.
I formerly worked with a group of young professionals in Colombia also interested in building a space to exchange knowledge and to work towards community revitalization. You're welcome to visit pejaniaira and the renewed version of this initiative: http://profesionalesamigos.org/ if you want to know more.
Arts-science alliances
My academic background is in biology, yet I've always been driven to explore other fields of knowledge and expression. I'm interested in arts as a path that helps rethinking-feeling and rebuilding the world, and that helps exploring other versions of reality to widen my own. I've engaged in photography as a tool to share views about the life of more-than-humans, and I've worked with artists in Colectivo cuenco con las manos to share stories about bees and their plants.
To see some individual work about bees, please visit this site.
Additional training
I like to stay updated and learn new things, so I've engaged in different training spaces detailed below:
Professional training
2024 Course Engage: Energía del Futuro. Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia (Hybrid)
2024 Course Diverse economies and other economies for life. Research Group on Economics, Environment and Alternatives to
Development. Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Online)
2024 Course Types of Conflict. Coursera (Online)
2024 Course Design Thinking Toolbox. Responsive Strategy Academy. Udemy (Online)
2023 Course Great Challenges of Public Policies in a World in Transition: Proposals from Ecological Economics, 17th Biennial
Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics, Bogotá, Colombia
2023 Course Latin American School on Heterodox Economics. Universidad Nacional, Bogota, Colombia
2023 Course Systems Science for Social Impact – Group Model Building. Center for Public Health Systems Science, Washington University in St. Louis. St. Louis, MO, USA
2021 Course Theoretical basis and tools for public scientific communication. Universidad Nacional De San Luis,
Argentina (Online)
2021 Associate degree Ecological restoration: Global change and biodiversity. Fundación CEPA- FLACAM network- UNESCO
Chair in Sustainable Development, Argentina (Online)
2021 Course Integral valuation of biodiversity and its benefits, with an emphasis on the Colombian Eastern plains. Universidad
El Bosque, Colombia (Online)
2021 Course Application of circular economy concepts in productive contexts. Sistema Nacional de Aprendizaje SENA,
Colombia (Online)
2021 Course Introduction to integrating QGIS and R. GIS in ecology, UK (Online)
2021 Course Sustainable and divergent economies: A critique to neoclassic economics. Centro de Estudios Críticos
Latinoamericanos, México (Online)
2020 Course Design and management of food gardens. Universidad Nacional, Bogota, Colombia
2019 Course Permacultural homegardens. Crianza de la tierra. Bogota, Colombia
2017 Professional Development Program (Inquiry, equity and diversity, and assessment in STEM education). Institute for
Scientist and Engineer Educators, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
2017 Graduate Leadership Certification Program. University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
2016 International workshop Cartographic Creation to Promote the Participation, Management and
Empowerment of Local Territories. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia
2016 Course Innovative Pedagogies for Peace Building and for the Resolution of Social Conflicts. Universidad del Rosario,
Bogota, Colombia
2016 Course Advanced Topics on GIS. Juniper GIS - Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia
2015 Theoretical - practical course Keeping of Stingless Bees. NaturApis and Universidad de Cundinamarca.
Fusagasuga, Colombia
2015 Theoretical - practical course Foraging Ecology of Pollination. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Bogota, Colombia
2014 International Seminar Family Agriculture, Peasant Economies and Rural Financial Systems. Latin American & Caribbean
Forum for Rural Finances. Bogota, Colombia
2013 International Workshop Gendered Access to Forest and Small Farms in Latin America. International Center for Tropical
Agriculture CIAT. Palmira, Colombia
2013 Field course Fundamentals of Tropical Biology. Organization for Tropical Studies. Costa Rica
2011 Associate degree Environmental Impact Assessment and Economic Valuing of Impacts. Universidad Nacional, Bogota,
Colombia
2011 11th Annual International Agroecology Short Course. Community Agroecology Network and University of California, Santa
Cruz, USA
2010 Associate degree Ecological Agriculture and Soil biology. Universidad Nacional, Bogota, Colombia
Licenses & Certifications
2024 Facilitator - Gender Up: A conversational method for responsable scaling. CGIAR & USAID- Feed the Future Innovation
Lab for Horticulture - University of California, Davis.
2022 Human Research - Social and Behavioral Research Investigators and Key Personnel. CITI Program.