I’m an entomologist, tropical ecologist, and conservationist working to study and protect biodiversity in the Peruvian Amazon. I am a full time professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), where I teach classes and supervise student research related to the sustainable management of biodiversity and other natural resources in Peru. I also direct the Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon (ASA), a non-profit organization focused on research, reforestation, and education in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. My most important research project is the Lepidoptera Diversity and Biology (LDB) Project, which is a collaboration between the PUCP, ASA, and many others from Peru and around the world that aims to advance our knowledge of Amazonian taxonomy, systematics, and ecology using butterflies and moths as a model group. My long-term vision is to position Peru, one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, at the vanguard of biodiversity research through the generation of basic biological information and its application to pressing scientific and environmental problems, the establishment of key infrastructure such as a modern natural history museum and laboratories to facilitate cutting-edge research in the Amazon, and the training of future scientists and conservation leaders in Peru and elsewhere.