Vania Nobuko Yoshikawa

I am currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Botany at the University of São Paulo (USP), under the supervision of Dr. José Rubens Pirani, working on the project entitled *"Sampling Gaps and Areas of Endemism in the Atlantic Forest and the South American Dry Diagonal Using Malvales as a Biological Model,"* funded by FAPESP. I am also a faculty member in the Graduate Program in Botany at the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) for the 20252028 term. I collaborate on a project led by Dr. Flávia Pezzini at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), which investigates the use of *Eriotheca* (Bombacoideae, Malvaceae) as a model for species distribution in the Brazilian Cerrado. Additionally, I am an associate researcher in a FAPESP-funded project focused on leaf ontogeny across different clades, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Gladys Flavia Melo de Pina (IB-USP), and participate in the PROTAX CNPq/FAPESP project, aimed at addressing collection gaps in the Cerrado, coordinated by Prof. Dr. José Rubens Pirani (IB-USP). I hold a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the University of Mogi das Cruzes (UMC), where I was a CAPES fellow, and developed the project *"Systematics of the Amazonian Pachira Clade (Bombacoideae, Malvaceae), with an Emphasis on Brazilian Species,"* which also received support from FAPESP. I completed my M.Sc. in Biotechnology in 2019 with a taxonomic and biogeographic study of Bombacoideae (Malvaceae) species occurring in the Brazilian Cerrado. I hold a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Mogi das Cruzes and a Licentiate degree in Biological Sciences from Universidade Cruzeiro do Sul. My main research focus is plant systematics, especially within the family Malvaceae. I carried out three undergraduate research projects (Scientific Initiation), all funded by CNPq, and received a PIBIC/UMC scholarship for my third project. I actively participate in national, international, and regional botanical congresses and I am a member of both the Brazilian Botanical Society (SBBrasil) and the International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT). You can contact me at vania_nobuko@hotmail.com, vanianobuko@gmail.com, or vnyoshikawa@usp.br. (Source: Lattes Curriculum)