Laura Céspedes Arias

I was born in Colombia, in a small city in the north of the country called Bucaramanga. Since I was a child I have had a strong interest and passion towards nature, which ultimate led me to choose biology as my career path. During my undergraduate studies I got involved in birdwatching and I have not stopped ever since. I also developed a strong interest for evolutionary biology, ecology and animal behavior. As my undergraduate thesis project I studied coloration in Colombian tanagers, and how their coloration can vary with changes in predation pressure. During the development of this project I had the opportunity to learn about many techniques to study birds in the field as well as in natural history museums. After graduating, I worked on several projects as a field tech in ornithology in both Colombia and Peru: Manu National Park (Peru), Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia), and in the eastern plains of Colombia. After almost two years of field work, I started my masters here in Colombia, at Universidad de los Andes where I am currently enrolled.

September 2016