Alexandre Antonelli

Professor Alexandre Antonelli is the Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He is also Professor in Biodiversity and Systematics at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and was the founder and first Director of the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, established during his time as Scientific Curator of the Gothenburg Botanical Garden.

Antonelli’s passion is nature, and his mission is to stop biodiversity loss. To tackle this major challenge, he studies the distribution and evolution of species and develops methods to speed up scientific discovery. His research focuses on the tropics, where most species occur and the threats are most acute. He has published over 190 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters and his work has been cited over 13,000 times.

In 2020, Antonelli led the development of a new science mission and strategy for Kew, which defined how Kew scientists will tackle biodiversity loss and help to address global challenges using plant and fungi-based solutions.

He is married with three children.