The Department of Biology

Mega Atria is a botanist with academic degree in biology (Bachelor, 1995) and conservation biology (Master, 2009) from the Department of Biology, Universitas Indonesia. She completed her PhD in 2023 at Leiden University, the Netherlands, with a dissertation on the evolution and biogeography of the rattan Calamus javensis. Her research interests span plant systematics (particularly rattan) taxonomy and the evolutionary relationships within this ecologically and economically important group, which plays a key role in tropical forest biodiversity, urban vegetation ecology and adaptation, and biodiversity conservation.

She has received research funding from various national and international sources, including the Leiden University Fund (LUF), Alberta Mennega Stichting, Treub-Maatschappij, and the Pulitzer Center’s Impact Seed Funding. She has also been awarded multiple research grants from Universitas Indonesia, such as PUTI Q1, PUTI Q3, Graduate Research Publication Grant, and FMIPA UI Research Grant. Mega Atria is also the founder of Herbarium Depokensis (UIDEP), a local herbarium dedicated to collecting and preserving urban plant specimens. Current research projects include herbarium development, creation of a herbarium database, studies on pavement plants in urban areas, and research on the functional diversity of urban trees in cities across Java. Currently she is also a member of the Indonesian Society for Plant Taxonomy (PTTI).