Beatriz Torres is the Senior Programme Officer for Outreach and Capacity Building. Beatriz is a tropical biologist whose research has focussed on endangered and threatened mammal and bird species in the Peruvian Amazon. Her research interests include social and reproductive systems, social behaviour, conservation of threatened species and sustainable development in the tropics. She is a member of several ornithological and conservation societies. Beatriz gets her biology degrees at the Universidad Nacional Agraria -La Molina and then pursued graduate work in the United States under a Fulbright Scholarship. In addition to holding different research positions, she has been an instructor teaching Animal Behaviour, Evolution and Ecology to science majors. Beatriz brings to GBIF her working experience in both the developed as well as in the developing world as well as in international environmental negotiations. She has worked for the governmental and non-governmental sectors, as well as an independent consultant and during the last 6 years for the United Nations, particularly for the Convention on Biological Diversity where she was a Program Officer for the Clearing House Mechanism. She joined GBIF on March 2002 and soon after GB5 relocated to Copenhagen.