Claudia Leal is an environmental historian of Latin America. She was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, where she is full professor at the Department of History and Geography at Universidad de los Andes. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley, and has been fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, and the National Humanities Center, North Carolina, as well as visiting professor at Universidad Católica de Chile and Stanford University. In her research, she uses an environmental lens to explore old historical questions, such as the building of freedom in the aftermath of slavery. She is currently finishing a history of Colombian national parks that seeks to understand how the state functions and is built in space, while also exploring the history of animals.