Biography
Paulo Brando is an Associate Professor at the Yale School of the Environment and a tropical forest ecologist studying how climate change and human disturbances affect the structure, function, and resilience of terrestrial ecosystems. His research focuses on identifying ecological thresholds beyond which global change drivers—such as drought, fire, and land-use change—cause abrupt and prolonged degradation of forests. Brando also studies ecological and climatological boundaries for tropical agricultural expansion and intensification. He leads the Ecology & Conservation Science of Tropical Ecosystems for Scalable Solutions (ECOSTRESS) Lab, which integrates long-term field experiments, forest inventories, remote sensing, and ecosystem modeling to understand how disturbances and landscape change influence carbon cycling, biodiversity, and forest recovery in the Amazon. His work has advanced understanding of how tropical conservation and ecosystem management can contribute to climate change mitigation.
