Javier Ruiz-Pérez is an archaeologist-palaeoecologist and a phytolith specialist with field experience in Bolivia, Brazil, India and Spain. His research is mostly focused on tropical South America, where he investigates indigenous cultivation systems, the effects of past anthropogenic land use on landscape evolution, and, more recently, the millennial-scale role of fire in shaping forest-savannah mosaics.

Currently, he is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology at Texas A&M University (College Station, USA). His current work is on the long-term ecological relationship between fire, forests and savannahs in Chiquitania, Bolivia.