Elisabeth Klara Viktoria Kalko (10 April 1962 – 26 September 2011[1] in Berlin) was a German tropical scientist and ecologist working at the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Ulm.

She spent considerable time on expeditions and at scientific institutions in the US, including National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., in the Congo and many other countries.

Beginning in 2000, Kalko held a joint appointment not only at STRI but also as director and full professor at the Institute of Experimental Ecology at the University of Ulm in Germany.

[2] Kalko was a member of the German National Committee on Global Change Research (2002–2011), and was elected for life to the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (2006).

From 2005 to 2011, she was vice-president of the Society of Tropical Ecology (GTOE), and from 2008 on she was a member of the Senate Commission on Biodiversity of the German Research Foundation (DFG).