I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, in a time full of changes, dreams, and nightmares. I did my undergraduate in Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, a campus within a botanical garden, which lies in the premontane cloud forest of the Caracas suburbs. I went to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, where after many struggles and hurdles I finally grew into the person and scientist I hoped I would be. After a three year Postdoctoral Research Associate stint at Colorado State University, a few gigs as an instructor/coordinator for the Organization for Tropical Studies, and finally a one-year postdoctoral position in Quito, Ecuador, I am now starting out as a new professor at IKIAM University in the small town of Tena, in the Amazonian Napo province of Ecuador.