Dr Esperança Costa is Director of the Luanda Herbarium (LUAI), Angola, and Professor of Botany at Agostinho Neto University, Luanda. Her research interests include pollen morphology in Genistae (Argyrolobium and Adenocarpus) from Angola and Mozambique, Leguminosae taxonomy and mangrove vegetation. She published a checklist of Angolan grasses in 2004 with Teresa Martins and Francisco Monteiro.

Costa was born in Luanda and studied biology at Agostinho Neto University, graduating in 1985. She spent 1983-1984 at the Centro de Botanica at the Institute for Scientific Research in Lisbon, Portugal, and on her return to Luanda was appointed assistant in plant biology at her university, in 1986 becoming head of the biology department.

Between 1986 and 1990 Costa developed the Luanda Herbarium and became the Angolan representative to the African Biosciences Network (ABN), after participating in an ABN meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, on forest management.

Costa left her position in Luanda in 1990 and embarked on a master's degree in plant productivity at the Technical University of Lisbon. From 1992 she worked on a thesis on plant ecology, earning her doctorate from the same university in 1997. She returned to Angola to be appointed professor at Agostinho Neto University, where she is also director of the herbarium.

Sources:
Anon, 2000, Southern African Botanical Diversity Network News, 5(3): 136-137.