Malagasy botanist. Solo Rapanarivo has worked since 1992 at Parc Botanique et Zoologique de Tsimbazaza (PBZT), where he is Head of the Botany Department. He was trained at the Universities of Antananarivo and Wageningen, earning his PhD for a monograph on the genus Pachypodium (Apocynaceae), a group on which he continues to work. His first collecting expedition, and subsequent employment at the botanical gardens, came about by a fortunate set of events.

In 1991, while finishing his master's degree, he was hired on the spot when his job interview with the director of PBZT was interrupted by a telephone call from the Missouri Botanical Garden at Antananarivo, which was looking for a guide to accompany two researchers on an expedition to Fort-Dauphin in the southern portion of Madagascar. This expedition, a botanical inventory of the Andohahela reserve, was the first of many collaborations with Dr A.J.M. Leeuwenberg, a world's expert on Loganiaceae and Aponyceae, and Simon Malcomber. A few months later, in February 1992, he accompanied Malcomber to Diégo-Suarez in the north of the island to inventory the Montagne d'Ambre reserve. On his return, he was recruited as curator of the herbarium at PBZT, working closely for the first four months with Peter Phillipson.

In 1993 he made a series of collecting expeditions with a number of visiting scientists: in the forests of Betatao, in the north of Anjozorobe, with Malcomber and Beverley Lewis; in the Andolaela reserve with Malcomber and Henk van der Werff; in the province of Tulear with Blaise du Puy and Dave Hardy; and in the Ankarana-Diégo-Suarez reserve and the Ambositra region with Carel Jongkind. He collected again with Dr Leeuwenberg in 1995 and 1996, this time in the provinces of Antananarivo, Majunga, and Diégo-Suarez for the systematic revision of the Pachypodium Lindl. of Madagascar, which formed the basis of his doctoral work. In 1998 an expedition was undertaken to Anjananaribe-Sud, to study the structure and population of Takthajania perrieri (Capuron) Baranova & J.-F.Leroy with George Schatz, Chris Birkinshaw, and Dr Rabakonandrianina.

He is actively involved in associations and projects that deal with the flora of Madagascar, as committee member of Groupe des Spécialistes de Plantes Malgaches (GSPM); vice president of Association des Spécialistes de Taxonomie Malgache (ASTM); programme leader in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands for PROTA; and project manager for the Action and Conservation Section of the project Crops Wild Relative (CWR).