David Lapola

I am a research scientist at the Center for Meteorological and Climatic Research Applied to Agriculture at the University of Campinas – UNICAMP, where my research team and I devote our time to understand the consequences of global climatic change on the Amazon forest and its cascading impacts on the region’s people and a variety of socioeconomic processes. I have a bachelor in Ecology (2005) from the State University of São Paulo – UNESP, a master’s degree in Meteorology (2007) from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research – INPE, and a PhD in Earth System Modelling (2010) from the Max Planck Institute/University of Kassel in Germany, which, altogether provide me a well-desired interdisciplinary background. My academic involvement (and personal amazement) with the Amazon forest dates back from 2002 when I was an intern at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project in Manaus. Since then, the ultimate underlying aim of my activities as a scientist is to guarantee that future generations have the opportunity to be amazed with the world’s largest tropical forest like I was as a young student. For that sake I advocate for a strong interaction between science and art to win people's hearts and minds about the importance, beauty and ways of the world's largest tropical forest.