Gaia is a Data Analyst and GIS Specialist with an academic background in biodiversity and natural resource management. She was stagiaire at the European Space Agency (ESA-Esrin) where she has acquired expertise with GIS and remote sensing.
During the past ten years of working experience within Bioversity International, she was involved in different research projects to create maps of species richness, vegetation indices, change detection, distribution modelling and other. She also contributed to develop a methodology based on household surveys, maps and data collecting missions to assess ‘on-farm biodiversity’ in Latin America and Asia as part of the research activity of UNEP-GEF projects. She presented the results during several institutional meetings and she organized training courses for local partners for capacity building and knowledge transfer.
Currently, she is Research Assistant for the Policy Unit by conducting data analysis and data reporting with special focus on ex situ seed conservation and plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) under the Multilateral System of the Plant Treaty.
A collaboration with CGIAR Independent Advisory and Evaluation Service (IAES) started in 2019. As Evaluation Data Analyst she supported the IAES team in developing a robust data analysis methodology as part of the independent evaluative review of the CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs). She continues to collaborate with Bioversity International (now, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT) and IAES. Gaia is passionate about biodiversity conservation, landscape analysis and sustainability.