Sandra Díaz ForMemRS is an ecologist interested in plant functional traits and syndromes, their effects on ecosystem properties, their contributions to human quality of life, and their interactions with global change drivers.

She constructed the first global quantitative picture of essential functional diversity of vascular plants –the global spectrum of plant form and function. Sandra has advanced theory and practical implementation of the concept of functional diversity and its effects on ecosystem properties and benefits to people. She combines her ecology studies with interdisciplinary work on how different societies value and reconfigure nature, having spearheaded transformative conceptual frameworks favouring pluralistic collaborations in environmental knowledge an action, including the notion of nature’s contributions to people.

Sandra co-founded the Global Communal Plant Trait Initiative TRY, co-chaired the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and is one of the seven independent members of the Scientific Advisory to the Secretary General of the United Nations. She is a Foreign Fellow of the British Royal Society, among other scientific academies. Her international scientific awards include the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2021) and Medals from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (2020) and Edinburgh (2023) and the Linnean Society (2023).

Her permanent home is in Córdoba, Argentina, where she is a Professor at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and a Senior Principal Investigator of CONICET.