Teixeira Costa, dr. L.T.C. (Luiza)

Luiza obtained her PhD in Plant Biology at the University of São Paulo in 2019. As postdoctoral researcher at the Meertens Institute, Luiza is doing research within the project “Botanical Records Through a Social Lens”, which is supervised by promoters Folgert Karsdorp and Rebeca Ibañez Martín. In this research, Luiza analyses bias and perception in the historical citizen science efforts that contributed to the compilation of Flora Batava, the first inventory of plants and fungi in the Netherlands. More broadly, Luiza’s research explores both plant-human and plant-plant interactions across time and space by studying a variety of collections, from botanic gardens and natural history museums to libraries and art galeries. Furthermore, her research has a strong focus on global change, as Luiza is interested in how profound changes in climate and land use can affect plant biology and our collective human dependency on plants.