Landcare Research
New Zealand
Email: president [at] iavs [dot] org

My research interests include vegetation classification and mapping, understanding naturally rare ecosystems and ecological informatics. I am a Research Associate at Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, New Zealand. I have been a member of IAVS since 1994, served on the JVS editorial board (2000-2003), was an Associate Editor (2003-2007), served on the IAVS Awards Committee (2009-2011), served on the steering committee of IAVS Working Group on Ecoinformatics (2013-), and have been on the IAVS Council, served as the IAVS Secretary from 2011-2019 and as President from 2019-2023.  My goals for IAVS include ensuring that we retain the financial ability to support our members and activities, that we are wise in our navigation and adjustment to rapid changes in scientific publishing that affect our journals, and that we continue to increase our membership by broadening the vegetation science disciplines represented and encouraging more involvement of women, early career scientists and those of the global south, especially Australasia and the Pacific.

National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
Email: zeleny [at] ntu [dot] edu [dot] tw

I am a vegetation ecologist interested in numerical ecology, diversity patterns, trait-based approaches, vegetation survey and classification, and the ecology of alien plants. I received PhD in geobotany in 2008 at the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic, and then worked as a scientific researcher in the Vegetation Science Group at the Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic. Since 2015, I have been teaching and doing research at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, currently as an Associate Professor and PI of the Vegetation Ecology Lab. I have served on Council and am now on the Governing Board as Secretary. I like the idea of serving the Association and promoting its activities in East Asia, where I am living.

Universidade Estadual Paulista
Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil
Email: afidelis [at] rc [dot] unesp [dot] br

I obtained my Bachelor Degree at the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) and my Master’s and PhD at the Technische Universität München (Germany). Since 2011 I have been an Assistant Professor at the Departamento de Botânica, at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Brazil). My research is focus on tropical savanna and grasslands, including seed and fire ecology, as well as biological invasions. I have been a member of IAVS since 2010, but I have been attending IAVS symposia since I was a graduate student. I am also the chair of the Global Sponsorship Committee since 2014.

Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University

Brno, Czech Republic
Email: axmanovairena [at] gmail [dot] com

I am interested in different aspects of plant species diversity, alien species and community ecology across various spatial scales and habitat types. I am a member of IAVS since 2021, but active within EVS working group since the first conference in Brno in 2008. I have become a member of the editorial review board of AVS in 2022. I also have been involved or even coordinated several EVA (European vegetation archive) projects, getting in contact with other IAVS, EVS members. From September 2023 I serve as vice president of the IAVS Governing board and I am responsible for the IAVS bulletin. 

Vegetation Ecology and Conservation Biology, University Bremen
Bremen, Germany
Email: mdiekman [at] uni [dot] bremen [dot] de

I obtained my PhD at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and since 2001 have been a professor at the University of Bremen, Germany. I have been a member of IAVS already for more than 30 years, and after having served as Publications Officer of the association I was the President of IAVS between 2011 and 2019. My main interests in vegetation science include vegetation-environment relationships, time-series analysis of vegetation data, and the conservation biology of forest and grassland ecosystems. I like field work, and in my spare time mountain walking and bird watching. A main goal of my work with IAVS is to contribute to make the association more attractive for young scientists and more sustainable.

Biodiversity Research Institute (IMIB), University of Oviedo
Mieres, Spain

Email: jimenezalfaro [at] uniovi [dot] es

I obtained my bachelor's degree in biology at the University of León (Spain) and my PhD at the University of Oviedo (Spain). After several postdocs in Spain, Czech Republic and Germany, since 2023 I am a professor of Botany at the University of Oviedo, where I lead the Vegetation & Biodiversity lab at the Biodiversity Research Institute. I am also the scientific director of the Atlantic Botanic Garden in Gijón, one of the most visited botanic gardens in Spain. My current research interests include the biogeography of plant communities and the seed regeneration niche, combining both basic and applied fields. I have served the IAVS as an Associate Editor since 2017 and have been an active member of the European Vegetation Survey (since 2012), the Ecoinformatics group (2014-2020) and the Global Sponsorship Committee (2018-2020). My first IAVS symposia was in Lisbon in 2005, and I have been attending the symposia regularly since 2013. I think the IAVS is a wonderful hub for promoting plant community ecology and the conservation of global vegetation in a changing world. My goal as an IAVS officer is to help the Society in promoting research excellence, equality in science at any level, international engagement, and working in partnership to highlight the beauty of natural habitats and their conservation needs.

Department of Biological Sciences
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
USA
Email: pminchi [at] siue [dot] edu

I was born in Hobart, capital of the island of Tasmania, which is one of the six states of Australia. Growing up surrounded by nature stimulated my interest in botany and ecology, which I studied at the University of Tasmania, ultimately obtaining a Ph.D. in plant community ecology in 1984. As a postdoc, the first international conference that I attended was the IAVS Working Group for Theoretical Vegetation Science, which was held in Uppsala in 1985. I joined IAVS and became a regular attendee of conferences and field trips. I was invited to join the editorial board of Vegetatio and later was one of the first Associate Editors of the Journal of Vegetation Science. I met my future wife, Loretta Battaglia (who is a wetland ecologist), at the IAVS annual Symposium in Houston, Texas in 1995 and we married after I moved to the USA in 1998. I was a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA from 2004 until my retirement in 2022. My research focuses on the development of robust multivariate techniques for data summarization, trend seeking and hypothesis testing, with applications in conservation and ecological restoration. I was elected Chair of the IAVS North American Section in 2013 and was first elected to IAVS Council and the Governing Board in 2015. I currently chair the Publications Committee, which oversees our journals (Journal of Vegetation Science, Applied Vegetation Science, and Vegetation Classification and Survey) and our other publications. I was co-Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for the 2018 IAVS Symposium, which was held in Bozeman, Montana, USA and included field trips to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier National Parks. I consider IAVS to be my scientific home and will continue to work to help the association achieve its goals.

“My priority and commitment is to help my clients to reach their full potential.”

Teresa Cunha is an Association Coordinator at the MCI Brussels Office and an extremly enthusiastic member of the Association, Management and Consulting Department. She upholds and promotes the values of MCI namely thriving through diversity and living by growth.

Teresa holds a Master’s degree in Sociology, specialization in Sociology of Work, Industries and Organisations, from the University of Porto, Portugal. Teresa is a external collaborator and researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Porto.