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Xylarium
Dr. Adriana Costa

Adriana Costa, PhD

Botanist & Wood Anatomist

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  • Assistant Professor of Wood Anatomy, Department of Sustainable Bioproducts, Mississippi State University

  • University of São Paulo graduate:

    • Ph.D. in botany

    • M.Sc. in wood science and technology

    • Teaching degree in biological sciences

    • Bachelor in biological sciences 

  • Botanist with over 20 years' experience in wood identification

  • 6 years as a professor of plant anatomy and morphology in Brazil

  • 5 years of post doctoral research in forensic wood identification (computer vision, DNA, near infrared spectroscopy) in the USA

  • Former curator of the largest xylarium in Latin America

Research Interests

Dr. Adriana Costa extracting DNA from wood

Image credit: Jim Schnept/WWF US

My research focuses on forensic wood identification for the deterrence of illegal logging and wood trade utilizing visual, chemical, and DNA methods. I have conducted studies involving conventional wood anatomy, computer vision, near-infrared spectroscopy, and DNA extraction.
 

Wood identification: how can we integrate scientific methodologies to improve wood identification accuracy?
 

Wood anatomy: how can semantic segmentation in macro and microscopic wood images advance quantitative wood anatomy and computer vision identification models?

 

Xylarium curation: what are the potential uses of reference wood samples in computer vision, DNA and chemical wood identification models?

Contact

Publications

Organellar microcapture to extract nuclear and plastid DNA from recalcitrant wood specimens and trace evidence

Costa A, Giraldo G, Bishell A, He T, Kirker G, Wiedenhoeft AC. (2022) Organellar microcapture to extract nuclear and plastid DNA from recalcitrant wood specimens and trace evidence. Plant Methods 18 (51)  https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-022-00885-z.

Ravindran P, Ebanyenle E, Ebeheakey AA, Abban KB, Lambog O, Soares R, Costa A, Wiedenhoeft AC. (2019) Image Based Identification of Ghanaian Timbers Using the XyloTron: Opportunities, Risks and Challenges. NeurIPS. ARXIV: ARXIV:1912.00296V1.

Snel FA, Braga JWB, Silva DC, Wiedenhoeft AC, Costa A, Soares R, Coradin VTR, Pastore TCM. (2018) Potential field-deployable NIRS identification of seven Dalbergia species listed by CITES. Wood Science and Technology. DOI: 10.1007/s00226-018-1027-9.

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