
Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
Rafael Assis is the lead of the BRC's secretariat, position occupied since 2019. Regarding his background, Rafael is a biologist, with a master’s in Botany and PhD in Ecology and Natural Resource Management. For over a decade, has worked with different aspects of vegetation ecology in the Amazon, such as the forest ecology of periodically flooded forests, patterns of endemism and habitat specificity, and ecological processes involving the effects of land-use and climate change. Has particular interests on macro-ecology of tropical forests, forest degradation and restoration, effects of land-use changes on carbon storage and biodiversity, soil-plant interactions, sustainable management of forests by local communities, mitigation of forest impact on mining areas. Rafael is the current coordinator of the Field Course in Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Biodiversity, collaborative course among Brazilian and Norwegians Institutions.


Rafael Assis
Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
Fridtjof Mehlum is the lead of the BRC's scientific committee and one of the initiators of the consortium in 2013 on behalf of the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo. He is the former research director of the museum and is now a senior researcher (emeritus). Mehlum holds a Dr. philos. degree in ecology from the University of Oslo. He has been involved in a broad range of biological research, and his specialty is ornithology. His publication list includes 150 scientific and popular science papers. Since the start of BRC, Mehlum has been a member of the BRC board and the head of the BRC Scientific Committee.

