Luis Eduardo Luna was born in Florencia, in the Colombian Amazon region. He is both a Guggenheim fellow and Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. Luna worked with Pablo Amaringo to establish the internationally recognized USKO-AYAR Amazonian School of Painting in Pucallpa, Peru. From 1994-1998, he taught as a Professor of Anthropology in Brazil, and currently teaches as a Senior Lecturer at the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki. He has also been an Associate of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University since 1986.