Monica Gagliano
Monica Gagliano (born 1976) is an ecologist known for expanding the field of biological research into the intelligence of plants. Gagliano is a Research Associate Professor in the field of evolutionary ecology at Southern Cross University in Lismore, Australia, where she directs the Biological Intelligence lab. She is a former fellow of the Australian Research Council. Through her research with plants, she “has extended the concept of cognition (including perception, learning processes, memory) in plants.” She has worked to expand how the public view plants, and all of nature, in respect of their subjectivity and sentience. Gagliano grew up in northern Italy. Career Gagliano trained as a marine ecologist. As a postdoctoral fellow at James Cook University in 2008, she was researching Ambon damselfish (Pomacentrus amboinensis) at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. As part of her research, she was required to kill and dissect the fish at the end of the study. The fish were used to her presence and would swim in and out of her hand daily, but on the last morning, when she visited them to say goodbye, they refused to come out of their crevices and greet her, as if they knew what she intended.