Career and Research
Ivette Perfecto is the James Crowfoot Collegiate professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Her research is generally in ecology, more specifically agroecology, diversity in agricultural systems, conservation biology, and the political ecology of agricultural transformations. She is particularly well-known for her work in complex ecosystem dynamics, especially through the analysis of spatial factors and trait-mediated effects. Her research regarding the improvement of agricultural systems through the application of ecological theories is inherently interdisciplinary, reflecting her career as both a scientist and as an engaged activist aiming to improve the livelihoods of peasant agriculturists through research and communication.
Her work regarding the role of pest species in agroecosystems has been influential in the developing narrative of reducing pesticide use. Her work on the effect of shade trees in agroecosystems as a source of biodiversity enhancement has been influential in promoting the understanding of agriculture’s role in biodiversity conservation. While concentrating her fieldwork in southern Chiapas, Mexico, and the central mountains of Puerto Rico, she continues to view her work in a larger context of the needed reform of agroecosystems more generally.
Perfecto has published more than 100 journal publications, and articles that she has authored or co-authored have been cited over 27,000 times. She has also published five books related to the general topic of the ecology of agroecosystems. She was one of the lead authors on the UN-sponsored International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Of her many honors, in 2022 she was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences and received an honorary degree from her alma mater, Universidad Sagrado del Corázon.
Personal story
Ivette Perfecto was born in Puerto Rico. As a child, she was fascinated by the environment of the Caribbean. She enjoyed the outdoors, particularly the underwater world she could explore while snorkeling, interactions that sparked her original interest in biology. However, the contamination of many of Puerto Rico’s ecosystems that resulted from the industrialization programs of Operation Bootstrap instilled a passion in Perfecto for environmental sciences. She enrolled in the Universidad Sagrado del Corázon in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and graduated with a B.S. of Biology in 1977. After earning an undergraduate degree, she was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At the time she was a single mother and was often unable to start her work until after she had put her son to bed in the evenings. In 1982 she earned her Masters of Ecology and returned to Puerto Rico where she taught college biology for a year, but her desire to continue conducting research led her to return to the University of Michigan where she earned a Ph.D. in Ecology and Natural Resources in 1989.
Her ongoing connection with Puerto Rico persists in stirring her feelings of outrage at the continued illegal occupation of her country by the Imperial US and she hopes to contribute to the resolution of this anachronistic and immoral arrangement through her academic research and political activism.
