José Luis Fernández Alonso facts for kids

José Luis Fernández Alonso (born in 1959) is a botanist who was born in Spain and later became a citizen of Colombia. He studies plants and has written many scientific papers about them since 1987.

Early Life and Education

José Luis Fernández Alonso was born in 1959 in Encinas de Esgueva, a town in the Province of Valladolid, Spain. He went to the Universidad de Salamanca where he studied Biology.

After university, he worked at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. Here, he worked with a famous botanist named Santiago Castroviejo. In 1985, he finished his first big research paper, called a graduate thesis. It was about the plants found in the northwest part of the Province of Valladolid. Later, in 1993, he completed his doctoral thesis. This was a detailed study of a plant group called Aragoa, which belongs to the Scrophulariaceae family and grows in tropical areas.

Discovering Tropical Plants

While working at the Royal Botanical Garden, José Luis Fernández Alonso became very interested in plants from tropical regions. He studied old plant collections from places like Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. These collections were made by famous explorers and botanists like Mutis, Ruiz, Pavón, and Isern. This experience made him want to learn more about the plants of these areas, especially the Scrophulariaceae family.

Work in Colombia

In 1986, José Luis Fernández Alonso moved to Colombia. He started working as an intern and then as a cooperating botanist for a Spanish agency called AECI. He joined the "Flora Project of the Royal Botanical Expedition of the New Kingdom of Granada." This project was based at the Institute of Natural Sciences at the National University of Colombia.

From 1991 to 2009, he became a professor and researcher at the same institute in Bogotá. He taught new biologists about how to identify and classify plants, especially those found in Colombia. He helped many students learn about the country's rich plant life.

National Colombian Herbarium

From 1996 to 2000, José Luis Fernández Alonso was in charge of the National Colombian Herbarium. A herbarium is like a library for dried plant samples. Scientists keep these samples to study them later. He worked with other herbaria across Colombia. Many of the plant samples he collected are now stored in these important collections.

Return to Spain

In 2009, José Luis Fernández Alonso moved back to Spain. He became a lead scientist at the CSIC, which is a big research organization, at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. His work there focuses on studying the wide variety of plants found in tropical parts of the world.

See also

In Spanish: José Luis Fernández Alonso para niños