Santiago Ramirez Said
Indigenous and Community Engagement Coordinator
Santiago is a botanist who has dedicated his life to the service of impact and change through creativity, inclusion, and a multidisciplinary mindset. Having lived in Brazil, Colombia, and Canada, Santiago has always felt at home on the entire American continent and, since very young, has devoted his career to the conservation of the continent's natural heritage and the sustainable and equitable development of its societies. Currently, Santiago is joining Future Earth as a Project Manager for the Landscape Analysis project co-designed with Microsoft. Parallel to his work in Future Earth, Santiago is a National Geographic Explorer, working with indigenous communities in Panama to advance cultural and ethnobotanical conservation initiatives while co-creating reforestation projects tightly based on indigenous knowledge. Prior to this, Santiago worked as a Lead Methodologist for the Colombian Ministry of Education, developing interdisciplinary initiatives to prevent Gender-based violence in rural Colombia. He holds a BSc in Biology and Conservation from the University of the Andes (Colombia), a specialization in GIS from the University of California, Davies (United States) and an M.Sc. in Natural Resource Sciences from McGill University (Canada).