Partners

 

Agrosavia, Colombia

Dr Roxana Yockteng leads the cacao research group at Agrosavia, focusing on the genomics of cacao. Her group also includes Jaime Osorio, Jhon Berdugo, Paola Delgadillo and Deisy Toloza.

 

Cartagena Botanical Garden Guillermo Pineres, Colombia

Professor Santiago Madrinan is Director of Cartagena Botanical Garden and Professor of Botany at the University of the Andes, with interests in plant systematics, horticulture and conservation.

 

Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE), Costa Rica

Dr Rolando Cerda and Dr Mariela Leandro run the cacao research group at CATIE.

 

Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), France

Dr Xavier Argout was the first to publish a cacao genome and continues to work on genomics of the species at the AGAP Institute that focuses on the genetic improvement and adaptation of Mediterranean and tropical plants at CIRAD.

 

Cocoa Research Centre (CRC), University of West Indies, Trinidad

Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan is Head of the Cocoa Research Centre and Professor in Genetics at the Cocoa Research Centre at the University of West Indies. He is responsible for policy, strategic direction, and governance of the Cocoa Research Centre, in addition to curation of the genebank and outreach.

 

Instituto de Cultivos Tropicales (ICT), Peru

Dr Enrique Arevalo manages the cacao research program at Instituto de Cultivos Tropicales (ICT). 

 

Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuaria (INIAP), Ecuador

Dr Rey Gaston Loor is responsible for the field development and co-management of research projects in cocoa and coffee at Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIAP), Ecuador.

 

National Botanic Garden, Ireland

Dr Darach Lupton is Living Collections Curator at the National Botanic Garden of Ireland. His interests include the conservation of the flora of Ireland and Oman, ethnobotany of Oman, and the promotion of botanic gardens and horticulture as essential tools in global plant conservation. Further details here and here.

 

National Museum of Natural History and U.S. National Herbarium, Smithsonian Institution, USA

Laurence J. Dorr has maintained a broad interest in the systematics and nomenclature of Malvaceae throughout his career including the curation and improvement of the Theobroma collection assembled by the late Dr. José Cuatrecasas.

 

Oman Botanic Garden, Oman

Dr Laila Al Harthy is Head of Botany and Conservation and a senior field botanist at the Oman Botanic Garden, and acts as the Oman Focal Point for the Middle East Green Initiative.

 

Sultan Qaboos University, Oman

Professor Rashid Al Yahyai is interested in food security in harsh environments, rural and human development and agroforestry at Sultan Qaboos University.

 

Universidad del Rosario, Colombia

Stefan Pohl is a representative of the Social Studies of Sciences, Technologies and Professions group at Rosario University and leads the Social Studies of Nutrition and Food research group. He co-supervises Carolina Bonilla's PhD on the cultural history of cacao cultivation.

Professor Adriana Sanchez is Director of the Biology Program at Rosario University with interests in functional ecology, plant-insect mutualisms and cacao pollination.

 

Universidade de São Paulo - Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (USP-CENA), Brasil

Professor Antonio Figueira is a plant molecular geneticist who has worked extensively on cacao including their fungal pathogens, particularly witches’ broom, at USP-CENA.

 

Universidade de São Paulo - Instituto de Biociências, Brasil

Jose Rubens Pirani is Professor of Botany at the Insitute of Biosciences at the University of Sao Paulo where his research focuses on the systematics, evolution and biogeography of vascular plants. He was the principal supervisor of Matheus Colli Silva's PhD.

 

University of California Los Angeles, USA

Professor Felipe Zapata is Co-director of the, Center for Tropical Research in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. His research examines the evolution, ecology, and conservation of biodiversity.

 

University College Cork, Ireland

Dr Barbara Doyle Prestwich is a plant geneticist interested in the transformation of crop plants. She is Head of Plant Science at the School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences at UCC.

 

University of East Anglia (UEA), UK & University of Siena, Italy

Professor Silvia Ferrini models consumer preference data and develops projects aimed at valuing environmental-related risks through the value of statistical life index as well as natural capital and ecosystem services assessment and management tools at The Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment at UEA and the University of Siena.

 

University of Miami, USA

Barbara Whitlock is a professor in the Biology Department at University of Miami. She uses phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequence data in combination with information from morphology, anatomy, and ecology to understand the timing and direction of changes in floral and vegetative traits, geographic distribution, and diversification rates. She has a longstanding interest in Theobroma cacao, and its relatives.

Katherine A. Wolcott is a PhD student at the Biology Department at the University of Miami. She is interested in maximizing the use of natural history collections and demonstrating this to the public using data visualization, microscopy and educational technology. Click here to see some of her very cool images of cacao flowers.

 

Universidad Nacional, Colombia

Professor Alejandro Caro is Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the National University of Colombia. His research interests are directed towards understanding the relationships between crops and their associated microbiota, investigating how these relationships confer phenotypic plasticity to the host and influence plant evolution.

  

Vilnius University, Lithuania

Dr Maria Fernanda Torres is based at the Life Sciences Centre, University of Vilnius, with interests in plant phylogeography, mutualisms, genomics, and evolution.

 

Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Switzerland

Professor Irene Chetschik is based at the Food Chemistry Research Group at ZHAW and is interested in post-harvest processing of cocoa beans and the assessment of new products from cacao wild relatives.