Nico Cellinese, Ph.D.
Professor and Curator of Herbarium and Informatics
Florida Museum of Natural History
How do plants diversify across continents, adapt to changing environments and evolve over millions of years? Nico Cellinese’s research tackles these questions by combining field-based biology with advanced data science, helping scientists understand the origins and patterns of plant life on Earth.
Cellinese’s work operates at the intersection of plant evolution, geography and data science, bringing together large datasets to uncover how species are related and how they spread across different environments. Her research follows a “macro-to-micro” approach, beginning with broad evolutionary patterns and then focusing on specific plant groups to understand the forces that shape their diversity. As Cellinese notes, her research seeks to bridge “raw biodiversity data and actionable evolutionary synthesis,” turning complex information into insights about how plants evolves.
A key focus of her recent work is the Mediterranean Basin, one of the world’s richest regions for plant diversity. There, she investigates how plants evolved over time, including the role human activity has played in shaping modern ecosystems. By incorporating human migration and environmental change into evolutionary models, her research is helping redefine how scientists understand biodiversity, showing that human influence has long been part of the story.
Cellinese’s work also extends to the development of new tools that allow scientists to organize and interpret biological data more effectively. She leads efforts to create digital systems that connect species names, evolutionary relationships and large datasets, making it easier for researchers to study the Tree of Life. Her contributions to global scientific resources, including systems designed to standardize how species are named and classified, support researchers around the world.
This combination of biological discovery and technological innovation reflects her role as “a leader in taking informatics-driven approaches to characterizing the Tree of Life,” noted David Blackburn, the associate director of research and collections, who nominated Cellinese.
Beyond her research, she works closely with students across disciplines and contributes to major institutional initiatives that support biodiversity research and data integration. Through her work, Cellinese is helping build a more complete and accessible picture of plant evolution, combining field research with digital innovation to better understand life on Earth and how it continues to change.