Sebastian was born and grew up in Popayan, Colombia, a city in the Andes Mountains in the middle of the two largest tropical forests in South America, the Amazon forest and the forest on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Strongly influenced by his family’s forestry activities, he graduated in Forestry Engineering from the University of Cauca in 2023. During his studies he was involved in forestry research, as a member and later coordinator of the Seedbed for Applied Silviculture, a voluntary student research group at the University of Cauca. Sebastian participated in several research projects in Colombia, completed an internship at Smurfit Westrock Colombia and an international internship at the Center for Ecosystem Modelling and Monitoring of the Universidad Mayor in Santiago, Chile, both in forestry research. Since 2024 Sebastian is doing his Master of Science in Biology at the Université du Québec à Montréal – UQAM with Christian Messier and is working at the most recent site of IDENT in Outaouais, Quebec. Sebastian is very happy to be part of the DIVERSE project, and believes that it is a great opportunity to work with his interests in forest ecology and biodiversity, and to contribute to forest management and conservation in Canada.