Esteli Jimenez-Soto, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Geosciences in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of South Florida. Her research spans broad areas of agroecology, insect community ecology and sustainable food systems, with a common goal of understanding how people, organisms, and the environment support agricultural systems, shape each other, and contribute to more socially and environmentally just food systems. Her current research focuses on three areas: 1) understanding the drivers of insect diversity and community ecology in urban and rural agricultural systems; 2) examining the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services in agricultural systems; and 3) understanding the human dimension of biodiversity in agroecosystems through the study of agrobiodiversity, traditional ecological knowledge, and food sovereignty. At the University of South Florida, she leads the Agroecology Lab, where research activities include field ecology in tropical and subtropical agroecosystems in Mexico and the United States, including coffee agroforestry systems in Chiapas, Mexico, and urban farms and gardens in the Tampa Bay area in the United States. Both study regions face converging global challenges, including biodiversity loss, food insecurity and climate change, requiring interdisciplinary approaches to scientific research. Students and postdocs in our lab are generally interested in understanding complex ecological and social processes concerning agriculture and food production at various scales, and enthusiastic about forging a community that values collaboration, belonging, and rigorous scientific enquiry in the field of ecology.