Monica Gagliano, PhD is an internationally award-winning research scientist, selected by Biohabitats as one of the 24 most Inspiring Women of Ecology, together with Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson, Sylvia Earl, and Terry Tempest Williams. She has been an invited lecturer and visiting scholar at the most prestigious universities, including Oxford, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Georgetown. Monica’s innovative work has been widely featured by prominent media, such as The New York Times, Forbes, The New Yorker, The Guardian, National Geographic, and many others.
Monica has pioneered the brand-new research field of plant bioacoustics, which for the first time, experimentally demonstrates that plants emit voices and detect and respond to the sounds of their environments. Her work has extended the concept of cognition in plants. By demonstrating experimentally that learning and memory are not the exclusive province of animals, Monica has reignited the discourse of plant subjectivity, as well as ethical and legal standing.
Inspired by encounters with nature and indigenous elders from around the world, Monica applies an innovative and holistic approach to science, one that is comfortable engaging at the interface between areas as diverse as ecology, physics, law, anthropology, philosophy, literature, music, the arts, and spirituality. By re-kindling a sense of wonder for the beautiful place we call home, she is helping to create a new ecology of mind that inspires the emergence of revolutionary solutions toward human interactions with the world we co-inhabit. Monica’s studies have led her to author numerous ground-breaking scientific articles and books, including Thus Spoke the Plant (2018) and The Mind of Plants (2021).
Currently, she is a Research Associate Professor (Adjunct) in evolutionary ecology in Australia, a 2025 Scholar-in-residence at Harvard Divinity School, and member of the More Than Human Life Project (MOTH). A free-roaming explorer, she is bridging Western and Indigenous Science to develop innovative approaches to planetary challenges.
Read more about Monica Gagliano at www.monicagagliano.com
Portrait of Monica Gagliano by Alexander Boëthius.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO HUMANS & NATURE:
Articles from Minding Nature:
