About me

I am a scientist. My overarching focus is on research for development, and I stand on systemic principles and tools to implement it. For more than 20 years, I have worked in Latin America and Africa on subjects, such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity use, climate change adaptation, food and nutrition security, urbanization, public health among others.

I was trained as an agronomist (BSc and Ing) at the Universidad San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Peru (1997); obtained a MSc on Agroforestry at the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Mexico (2001); and got a PhD in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Bonn, Germany (2009). During 2009 and 2010, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation and the Center for Development Research (ZEF) of the University of Bonn. In 2011, I became a senior researcher at ZEF until 2018. From 2019, I have been ascribed to the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau as a scientist and remain linked to ZEF as an associated researcher. In addition, in 2024 I have initiated a bi-university academic hub: the Complex Systems Group, that I currently coordinate. 

I have conducted research in Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mexico and Peru. Out of this work, I have produced more than 60 scientific publications, including books, scientific papers, book chapters, as well as working, discussion and white papers; I have also given talks in a number of international conferences, and performed regularly as a guest editor and reviewer in several international scientific journals. 

Relatedly, I teach in some postgraduate programs and tutor and supervise PhD candidates and MSc students.

For a detailed CV

Aside from this, and overall, I am a family person. Together with my wife and our son Damian, we fill our time with home-life, cooking, literature, music, cinema, sports and excursions.

In the little remaining time, I write a series of popular science articles: Ciencia et al., that deals with subjects at the interface of science and humanism, produce the bi-weekly blog-column 2 min desde la Ciencia on societal  emerging issues, and carry out unambitious literature projects, all in the Spanish language.