I am a microbiologist specialized in the molecular ecology of polar microbial communities. I have a MSc degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, Brazil), and a PhD in Sciences from the University of Liège (ULiège, Belgium). I am currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki (UH, Finland).

I have been fascinated with the Polar Regions since my undergraduate studies in Brazil. I was very surprised by how little we know about the microbial communities thriving in cold environments, especially if we acknowledge their vital contribution to global climate and biogeochemical cycles. I first had the chance to work with polar microbial ecology during my master’s studies. Under the supervision of Dr. Alexandre Macedo from the Laboratory of Biofilms and Microbial Diversity (UFRGS), I investigated the functional and taxonomic diversity of microbial communities in soil, water and snow from King George Island, Antarctic Peninsula. After obtaining my MSc degree, I decided to continue my studies abroad. My PhD studies were carried out in the Cyanobacteria group (ULiège) under the supervision of Dr. Annick Wilmotte, and focused on the study of the diversity and ecology of cyanobacteria in a range of Arctic and Antarctic environments.

I have now been working since 2018 as a post-doctoral researcher in the Arctic Microbial Ecology group (UH) led by Dr. Jenni Hultman. Our research mainly focuses on the application of state-of-the art molecular ecology techniques (metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics and single-cell sequencing) to the study of microbial communities in Arctic soil. You can read more about our research here.