Monica Gagliano

Monica Gagliano, PhD is a Research Associate Professor in evolutionary ecology at Southern Cross University where she directs the Biological Intelligence (BI) Lab as part of the Diverse Intelligences Initiative of the Templeton World Charity Foundation. She has pioneered the brand-new research field of plant bioacoustics, for the first time experimentally demonstrating that plants emit their own ‘voices’ and detect and respond to the sounds of their environments.

Her work has extended the concept of cognition (including perception, learning processes, memory) in plants, re-igniting the discourse on plant subjectivity and ethical and legal standing. 

She applies a progressive 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 and the arts, indigenous wisdom and spirituality. Her latest book is Thus Spoke the Plant (North Atlantic Books, 2018).

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You can read more about Monica’s work here, and watch her TEDx talk here on ‘How ‘heretical’ science revealed the intelligence of Nature’.