Personal profile

Personal profile

Diego Molina is a botanist who turned to human geography and environmental history to understand the changing relationships between people and plants. He worked for several years as a botanist in Colombia, participating in scientific explorations, species discovery, and designing public policies for plant conservation. Before becoming a British Academy Fellow at the RHUL, he was a Rachel Carson Fellow in Munich.

Research interests

Diego is interested in the co-creation of environments between humans and nonhumans, with a particular focus on the transformations of human-plant relationships in tropical cities. As part of his project "The Nineteenth-Century Ornamental Exchange, plants and the greening of urban spaces in Europe and the Andes", he attempts to unveil the 19th exchange of plants between Europe and the Andes as part of the transatlantic expansion of capitalism and its linked urbanisation. Diego is also interested in non-westerner botanical philosophy and how diverse ways of understanding plants produce unique human/botanical intersections. 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities