Ivette Perfecto

Ivette Perfecto is the James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor of Environmental Justice at University of Michigan. She is an interdisciplinary scholar working in agroecology with a focus on the intersection between biodiversity, agriculture, and food sovereignty. Her research examines arthropod-mediated ecosystem services in agricultural and agroforestry systems with an emphasis on understanding ecological interactions that result in autonomous pest control and reduction of pesticide use. She also works on the spatial ecology of the coffee agroecosystem and is interested more broadly in the links between small-scale sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, and food sovereignty in Latin America.

Perfecto is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Senior Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and a long-time member of Science for the People and the New World Agriculture and Ecology Group. She was a lead author of the World Bank’s International Assessment of Science, Technology and Knowledge for Development. She holds a B.S. from Universidad Sagrado Corazón, Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Natural Resources, University of Michigan.