Andrés Felipe Cárdenas Rojas
Premium memorial FeaturedLovingly known as “Pipe”
14 September 1987 — 27 February 2024 · aged 36
Páramo ecologist and Universidad Nacional lecturer who made frailejones loved by freshmen
Bogotá, Colombia Born in Bogotá, Colombia Resting at Ashes scattered in the Sumapaz páramo, ColombiaAbout Andrés
Andrés Cárdenas liked to say that the best way to understand a mountain was to lie down on it. He lay down on a lot of mountains. In the páramos above Bogotá, with a notebook, a thermos of tinto and an expression of complete happiness, he spent most of his adult life listening to frailejones, the silver-haired plants that drink the clouds and give the capital its water.
Born in Bogotá in 1987, the son of a bus mechanic and a primary-school teacher, Andrés studied biology at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, earned a master's degree at the Universidad de los Andes and a doctorate back at the Nacional, where in 2019 he became an assistant professor of ecology. His research in the Sumapaz páramo, the largest in the world, helped document how highland ecosystems store carbon and regulate water, and he worked with the Instituto Humboldt on conservation plans for the páramos near Bogotá.
Students loved him. His first-day lecture began with a plastic cup of water and the question “Where did this come from?” and ended three hours later in a field, in the rain, with forty first-years staring at a plant. He lent out jackets and binoculars and kept a drawer of arepas in his office for any student who had missed lunch. Colleagues called him the department's heartbeat; students called him Pipe.
Away from the páramo he rode his bicycle in the Sunday Ciclovía, cheered for Independiente Santa Fe with a loyalty that guaranteed regular heartbreak, played the tiple badly and the guitar a little better, and cooked ajiaco with a thoroughness that frightened his friends. He met Camila Restrepo at a conservation workshop in 2016, and she was his partner and favorite co-author ever after.
Andrés died on 27 February 2024, aged thirty-six, in Bogotá, after a short illness, held by his family. His ashes will be scattered at Sumapaz when the frailejones bloom. He leaves his partner Camila, his parents Gloria and Jorge, his sister Natalia and a department of young scientists who will carry the mountain forward.
“The best way to understand a mountain is to lie down on it and listen.”
- Place of birth
- Bogotá, Colombia
- Resting place
- Ashes scattered in the Sumapaz páramo, Colombia
- Passed away
- 27 February 2024, Bogotá
Celebration of Life
Sunday, 3 March 2024 at 12:00 UTC
Add to calendarAuditorio León de Greiff, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Carrera 30 No. 45-03, Bogotá
Get directionsMemorial fund
Andrés Cárdenas Páramo Research Fellowship
Funds a field season for a young Colombian ecologist studying the páramos he loved.
$4,422.25 raised of $6,000
74%20 recent contributions
- PV
Prof. Marta Isabel Vargas gave $19 · 2y ago
- RM
Rev. Dr. Alvin Mathis gave $71.25 · 2y ago
“A small token of love.”
- NR
Natalia Cárdenas Rojas gave $47.50 · 2y ago
- PZ
Padre Armando Zuluaga gave $190 · 2y ago
“In honour of a great man.”
- AN
Anonymous gave $475 · 2y ago
“From your old classmates.”
Life journey
B.Sc. in Biology
Universidad Nacional de Colombia2004 – 2010 · Bogotá
Graduated with honors and a lifelong affection for plants that look like they're wearing fur.
M.Sc. in Ecology
Universidad de los Andes2011 – 2013 · Bogotá
Thesis on water regulation in high-Andean wetlands.
Field Researcher
Instituto Alexander von Humboldt2013 – 2019 · Bogotá
Mapped páramo ecosystems and helped design conservation plans.
Ph.D. in Biological Sciences
Universidad Nacional de Colombia2014 – 2019 · Bogotá
Dissertation on carbon storage in the Sumapaz páramo.
Assistant Professor of Ecology
Universidad Nacional de Colombia2019 – 2024 · Bogotá
Taught more than a thousand students and took most of them into the field.
Volunteer Guide
Sumapaz Youth Education Program2012 – 2024 · Sumapaz, Colombia
Led school groups into the páramo every Saturday of the dry season.
Distinguished Teaching Recognition
Universidad Nacional de Colombia2023 · Bogotá
Voted by students, who said he made science feel like an adventure.
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Family & connections
Andrés is survived by
- Camila Restrepo· Partner
- Gloria Rojas· Mother
- Jorge Cárdenas· Father
- Natalia Cárdenas Rojas· Sister
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Andrés.
Knew Andrés? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- DR
Collaborator, Instituto Humboldt
Andrés brought poetry to a field that doesn't always have room for it. His reports were precise and his marginal notes were funny. Once I found, beside a table of soil temperatures, the line “The ground is cold but kind.” I have never forgotten it.
- SM
Cycling friend, Sunday Ciclovía
Every Sunday at seven for ten years, on Carrera Séptima. He never missed a ride and never admitted that a hill was steep. His last ride, in January, was to the top of La Calera, where he took a photo of the clouds. We'll ride it again, Pipe.
- LB
Former student, now a conservation biologist
I wanted to drop out in 2017. Andrés took me to Chingaza and handed me binoculars. A spectacled bear stood on a ridge a kilometer away. I cried and stayed. I work on bear corridors now, and I still look at every ridge, hoping.
- PV
Head of the Biology Department
Andrés's student evaluations were the highest I have read in thirty years. One student wrote, “He made me believe a plant could be a friend.” He believed that about everything, and he was right. The department is quieter without his arepas.
- NR
Sister
Pipe collected rocks as a child and lined them up on the windowsill by size. He said they were the first scientists. Mamá still keeps them there, in order, and I can't make myself move one. I have never been prouder of a boy and his rocks.
- CR
Partner
Andrés kissed the frailejones goodbye every time we left the páramo. He thought it was a private ritual. Everybody on the trip knew. I will carry his thermos to Sumapaz in April. He would say the mountain doesn't need us. But I think it will be glad to have him.