My research aims at exploring the ecology and evolution of marine symbiotic microbes, with the ultimate goal of understanding the mechanisms underpinning the early evolution of organelles (e.g., chloroplasts) in eukaryotes. In order to do so, I apply different methods, such as single-cell techniques (genomics and microscopy), high-throughput DNA/RNA sequencing and bioinformatics. Also, during my career I have designed new molecular tools and approaches (CARD-FISH probes, qPCR primers, antibodies and bioinformatic pipelines) that have been repeatedly used by the scientific community.

I got my PhD at the ICM-CSIC (Spain) in December 2017. My main objective was to get a better picture of the diversity, ecology and evolution of marine nitrogen-fixing bacteria. During that time I participated in two important global oceanographic expeditions, Malaspina2021 and TARA Oceans. In 2017, even before defending my PhD, I obtained a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship that was scored among the best ones (98.4/100), and the best among all Spanish candidates in the 2016 call. This fellowship brought me in January 2018 to my first postdoctoral position at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) in USA, where I spent three years (2018-2020) studying the evolutionary aspects of nitrogen-fixing symbioses in the lab of Jonathan P. Zehr. In November 2020 I moved back to Europe, to the Station Biologique of Roscoff (France), where I spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher in the team of Laurence Garczarek, where I had the opportunity to join the TONGA project. Since November 2021 I came back to the ICM-CSIC as a P.I. of my own 3-year project (UCYNELLE) funded by ‘La Caixa’ Junior Leader programme. My project aims at using symbioses between unicellular marine microbes as model systems to understand the evolution of the eukaryotic cell. Also, I have recently joined an international working group created to understand nitrogen fixation across aquatic biomes.