Diego has been selected for technical support proposed by Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) and within the framework of the Scholars Program of the Initiative for Conservation in the Andean Amazon (ICAA), a program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

His research focuses on the identification of theoretical and econometric models driving the processes that effect deforestation patterns, with an emphasis on institutional and government factors as underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation.

Diego is biologist from Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia and has a doctoral degree in Biodiversity from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology in the University of Kent, UK. His research interests are wide including mammals, habitat use, conservation biology and forest. Several of his researches have been focus on his favorite species, the mountain tapir. Diego was professor and director of the biology department in Universidad de Pamplona at Colombia and visiting fellow in the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network at Conservation International, where he developed analytic tools to study and monitoring terrestrial vertebrates using camera traps. He is also an avid photographer.