At CIFOR, Rosa María Román-Cuesta runs research on GHG emissions from the land use sector, climate change mitigation options, governmental mitigation commitments under the Paris Agreement, and GIS-Remote sensing activities such as mapping/monitoring of tropical peatlands. She began her international career working on a EU project on sustainable use, conservation and restoration of tropical forests in Mexico and Chile, from where she earned her PhD on Forest Sciences (2002) in CREAF-Center for Ecological and Forestry Research, in Barcelona, Spain, where she is originally from. Prior to joining CIFOR Rosa María ran consultancies work for the Norwegian Government and held a three years position at the UN-REDD program at FAO, where she assisted Latin American Governments on the development and implementation of their REDD+ forest mitigation activities and associated MRV systems.

Rosa María has been in Academia since 1998 and counts on seven years of postdoctoral research at well-known centers in Mexico (ECOSUR), UK (Oxford), and Germany (TUM, Munich). She is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow since 2007, and a guest-researcher both at the University of Wageningen (Holland) and at CREAF’s research center (Barcelona, Spain). She has a particular fascination with and love for tropical forests where she counts on more than 20 years of experience (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Panama, Tanzania). She works from plot level to landscape levels through remote sensing and GIS. She collaborates regularly with scientists, NGOs and governments and recently with the private sector.