Robin Foster is a Conservation Ecologist with ECP. He is active in programs to preserve biological diversity and threatened habitats in the tropics, especially in Central and South America. He has a long history of research and exploration in Latin America, focusing on tropical forest ecology and geography, plant community composition and dynamics; floristics; and reproductive biology of plants. As part of the tropical Rapid Biological Inventory teams, Robin uses the information on ecological and floristic patterns to recommend conservation priorities.

The lack of resources for identifying plants in the tropics has been a bottle-neck for all researchers and students, and a barrier to public interest for a long time. It has provoked Robin to develop a variety of new tools to speed up the identification and learning process, such as the Rapid Reference Collection and Rapid Color Guides, while taking advantage of digital technology and the vast resource of tropical collections in the herbarium of The Field Museum.

Robin received a B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in Botany/Plant Ecology from Duke University in 1974. He has also been on the biology faculty of the University of Chicago, a senior ecologist at Conservation International, and a staff biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.