Manuel Lopes

I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Aquatic Environment Sciences at ICBAS, concluding it with an internship at the Lisbon Oceanarium focused on understanding the feeding behaviour of both leafy and common seadragons. After completing my degree, I took a break from academic life to pursue an internship at Instituto BW, a wildlife rehabilitation centre in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While working there, I also collaborated with GEMM-Lagos (Grupo de Estudos de Mamíferos Marinhos da Região dos Lagos), a research group dedicated to the study of marine mammals in the region. I am now starting the second year of my Master’s in Biodiversity, Genetics, and Evolution, with a thesis on the genetics of elasmobranchs, to be developed in collaboration with Dr. Fabiana Neves and Dr. Ana Veríssimo. My current scientific interests focus on genetics, particularly in population genetics related to elasmobranchs and cetaceans.