Introducing Carlos Andrés Ordóñez Parra, our new Science Editor

Carlos (he/him) is an ecologist passionate about science communication. As Botany One’s Science Editor, he aims to highlight exciting plant science research and support those interested in doing the same.

He became interested in seeds early in his studies at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia). Since then, his passion for seeds has only grown, and he is convinced that seed science is vital to tackling most of the current issues we are facing today, from food security to ecosystem degradation. Now, he is a PhD student at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) studying the germination ecology of the Brazilian Cerrado, the largest and richest savannah in the world. Carlos’s research aims to integrate different approaches – seed ecophysiology, functional ecology and evolutionary biology– to increase our understanding of the natural regeneration of this fascinating ecosystem and build capacity for its conservation and restoration.

Carlos has been interested in science communication since his undergraduate studies, where he wrote for Pesquisa Javeriana and Revista Javeriana, two of the science communication outlets from his university. Still, he discovered his passion for writing when he was part of the Plantae Fellow’s class of 2020 –a training opportunity offered by the American Society of Plant Biologists (APSB). As a result, he has written almost a hundred summaries for Plantae’s Newsletter about different seed science papers, from molecular biology and physiology to macroecology and quantitative synthesis. During this journey, he also started writing articles about seed ecology for Botany One.

Now that he is a Science Editor, he wants to share this passion and help others find joy in writing, just like his mentors have done with him in the past. Carlos also aims to use this position to highlight researchers from historically excluded groups, spread the word about the high-quality science they do, and, of course, bring new and exciting seed stories to Botany One.