AzSS 2023

Adriano Pimentel is currently a volcanologist at the Research Institute for Volcanology and Risk Assessment (IVAR) of the University of the Azores. Adriano's main research areas are explosive volcanism, physical volcanology, igneous petrology, and volcanic hazard assessment, with an interest in ocean island volcanoes and particularly in the geology of the Azores. He has over 11 years of experience working on seismovolcanic monitoring at the Centre for Information and Seismovolcanic Surveillance of the Azores (CIVISA), where he followed several seismic crises and collaborated on more than 60 technical-scientific reports.

In the last 20 years, he participated in 15 scientific projects, with regional, national and international funding, which included fieldwork on several volcanic islands (Azores, Canary Islands, and Cape Verde) and oceanographic missions on the North Atlantic. He has published 33 ISI scientific articles, 6 book chapters, and 1 book, and has more than 70 contributions presented at scientific conferences.

Adriano was Guest Editor of special issues in Frontiers in Earth Science and Comunicações Geológicas, including a Frontiers Research Topic on "Ocean Island Volcanoes: Genesis, Evolution and Impact". He is Review Editor of Frontiers in Earth Science and Topic Editor of Geosciences.

R.S. Ramalho obtained his PhD in Geology at the University of Bristol, UK (2010). He is currently a lecturer at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences of Cardiff University (UK), with honorary positions at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Columbia University, USA) and Lisbon Universities. Ramalho’s research focuses on the geodynamic evolution and hazards of ocean island volcanoes. He aims to understand how island volcanoes grow and decay, at different time and spatial scales, and how that evolution reflects the holistic interaction between surface processes and deep earth mechanisms.

Ramalho's work also increasingly focuses on investigating the hazard potential posed by island volcanoes, under a multitude of perspectives that, beyond focusing on solid Earth processes, increasingly study events that result from land-ocean-atmosphere interactions in connection with mechanisms of global change. His research is therefore very broad, bridging the fields of volcanic geology, plate tectonics and structural geology, geomorphology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, and natural hazards.

Rui Quartau is a Marine Geologist at Instituto Hidrográfico, Portugal. His research interests have been focused on the submarine morphology of ocean island volcanoes and seamounts to understand how the interplay between volcanism, erosion, tectonics, sedimentation and mass-wasting processes shape the submarine landscape of these features. He has 20 years of experience in the acquisition, processing and interpretation of multibeam bathymetry, high-resolution seismic reflection, sediment samples and video imagery data.

He (co-) coordinates several (inter)national projects on the study of volcanic islands and seamounts (e.g., PLATMAR, UNTIED, HAZARDOUS, InterRidge Working group on mid-ocean ridge islands and seamounts). He has been also involved in applied projects such as marine aggregate and habitat mapping studies in the Azores and he is an active member of the ICES Working Group on the Effects of Extraction of Marine Sediments on the Marine Ecosystem.

Tanya Silveira has a PhD in Geology from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and has specialized in coastal dynamics. For over 20 years, Tanya has worked in research with a strong application component, developing and implementing long-term coastal monitoring programs, and nature-based coastal protection solutions.

She currently works at the Research Vessels and Ocean Observatories Group of the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), and coordinates the “Atlantic Observatory – Data and Monitoring Infrastructure” project. Tanya is an external collaborator of the Dom Luiz Institute and serves as Invited Associate Professor at the School of Technology of the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal.

Rute Coimbra is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Aveiro, focusing on geological archives of warm periods of Earth’s History.

She has a vast experience in isotope and elemental geochemistry of ancient carbonate materials, with a special interest in skeletal parts of marine and continental organisms encased in Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits.

Troy Rasbury received her PhD in Geosciences at Stony Brook University (1998 She was an assistant professor at Queens College CUNY for one year (1998-1999) before moving back to Stony Brook as an assistant professor. She runs the Facility for Isotope Research and Student Training (FIRST) at Stony Brook.

She is an isotope geochemist with two main research interests, U-Pb dating of carbonates and carbonate characterization; boron isotopes in fluids and rocks.

Emília Salgueiro is a researcher at the Marine Geology and Georesources Division of IPMA and CCMAR (Univ. of Algarve). Her research interests are focused on oceanographic and climatic conditions at the decadal- to-orbital scale in coastal upwelling areas that are primary CO2 sinks, using the Iberian margin as a case study.

She has expertise in planktonic foraminifera (fauna, transfer-functions, stable-isotopes and trace-elements) in seawater and sediments, that provide actual and past information on temperature, productivity, biodiversity and biostratigraphy.

In addition, she integrates sedimentological (grain size, ice-rafted debris, XRF), biomarkers or data from other microfossil groups into her studies. She is Editorial member of “Revue de Micropaléontologie” Elsevier Journal.

Adán Pérez García (Madrid, 1984) is a researcher at the Evolutionary Biology Group of the National University of Distance Education (Madrid, Spain), and an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of that University. He works on the analysis of the fossil record of various groups of reptiles. His main field of research corresponds to the study of the evolutionary history of the turtles, both European forms and taxa related to them that inhabited other continents (North America, South America, Asia and Africa).

He focused on the study of several Mesozoic turtle lineages during the development of his PhD Thesis (presented in 2012, obtaining the extraordinary doctorate award). He is currently developing the study of Cenozoic forms, while he also continues to work with Mesozoic taxa. He also collaborates in the study of other lineages. He is the author of about 120 scientific papers in journals of the Science Citation Index, and more than 200 contributions presented at specialized scientific conferences.

He has described more than 25 new genera and more than 20 new species of turtles, as well as several taxa corresponding to other groups of reptiles (e.g., Triassic sauropterygians and Cretaceous crocodiles). He has been involved in more than 15 scientific projects, being the main researcher of many of them. He has several predoctoral researchers under his charge. He has been an evaluator of numerous scientific papers sent to Science Citation Index journals (more than 50) and has participated in several national and foreign scientific committees, as well as in the evaluation of various European and non-European scientific project programs.

Alfred Uchman graduated in 1984 from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, which is one of the oldest universities in Middle Europe (1364). Since his PhD (1990) ichnology became his main topic of research. Alfred Uchman got the degree of Doctor Habilitated in 1996 and full professorship in 2001. He spent a long time in Germany (almost 2 years) as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellow. He was Director of the Institute of Geological Sciences, Jagiellonian University in 2001-2008. He is Editor-in-chief of Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae, Member of the Polish Academy of Art and Sciences, and Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Alfred Uchman worked on many subjects of ichnology, which embraced marine and non-marine facies of Phanerozoic in many European some other countries worldwide. The topic include also ichnotaxonomy and neoichnology. In 2008, he organized the Second International Congress on Ichnology and was President of the International Ichnological Association in 2012-2016.

Graduated in Geography (2000) and PhD in Geology (2007), he is Assistant Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Minho. His research interests include geomorphology, geodiversity and geoconservation. He was one of the coordinators of the Portuguese inventory of geosites with national and international relevance. He is a national representative member of the International Association for the Conservation of Geological Heritage (ProGEO), a member of the Panel of Experts on Geological Heritage of the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) and a member of the Group of Experts on Geological Heritage of the International Commission for Protected Areas (WCPA) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

S.P. Ávila graduated in Biology in 1995, completed a MSc in Insular Ecology and Evolution in 2001, and a PhD degree in Biology/Palaeontology in 2005 from the University of the Azores. He supervised 10 PhD students (6 in progress), 1 MSc and 10 internships. In 2005, he established his research group (MPB-Marine Palaeontology and Biogeography Lab), now with 18 members. He participated in 16 research projects, with regional, national, or European funding, and published 78 SCI articles, 28 articles in other journals, 10 books and 6 chapters of books, and edited 7 books.

He organized 16 advanced courses, 33 congresses and 31 scientific expeditions in the Azores, Madeira, Canaries and Cabo Verde archipelagos. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the “Santa Maria PalaeoPark”, appointed by the International Palaeontological Association. He is also the Scientific Advisor of the "Fossils’ House" Museum, at Santa Maria Island (Azores). Since 2005, he has been studying the patterns and processes of dispersal, colonization and speciation of shallow-water marine invertebrates in oceanic islands.

He is the main author of the most recent theory of marine island biogeography, the SLS – Sea-Level-Sensitive model of marine island biogeography. His team has expertise in marine molluscs, echinoderms, crustacean barnacles, ostracods, bryozoans and coralline algae forming rhodoliths. His main interests are the geological evolution of the NE-Atlantic islands, and the palaeontology, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of the Neogene to Recent ecosystems in reefless volcanic oceanic islands.

He is Associate Editor of Frontiers of Biogeography and of Frontiers in Marine Science, Subject editor of Biodiversity Data Journal, and an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, and Reviewer Board of Diversity. He is Taxonomic editor of the Paleobiology Database (https://paleobiodb.org/classic).

A.C. Rebelo obtained her PhD in Marine Sciences at the University of the Azores (2016). She has joint appointments at CIBIO-Açores and the Naturkunde Museum Stuttgart (Germany). Her research interests are focused on the formation of rhodoliths - nodules of free-living coralline red algae (Rhodophyta), around reefless volcanic island shelves in the NE Atlantic.

The research by A.C. Rebelo uses an approach that combines information from both modern rhodolith living communities from selected island shelves of the Azores, Madeira and Cabo Verde Archipelagos and the marine fossil record from those islands designed to gain a unique insight into physical processes related to the formation of rhodoliths around insular shelves and the sedimentary dynamics.

For the past 20 years, B. Berning’s scientific research focused on the diversity, evolution, ecology and biogeography of fossil and Recent bryozoans in the North Atlantic. He was a research associate at the universities of Hamburg (Germany) and Graz (Austria), was Head of the Geoscientific Collections of the Upper Austrian State Museum at Linz (Austria) for over 14 years, and is now guest researcher at the University of Hamburg again.

As modern works on Atlantic islands and seamounts are lacking, the foundation of his studies are taxonomic revisions based on type material, which is kept in some of Europe’s largest collections: the natural history museums of London, Paris and Monaco. Knowledge of the morphology of the historical species introduced in the late 19th to early 20th century is necessary for an estimation of the true diversity and biogeography of bryozoans in the Azores. Freshly collected material (e.g. from a scientific cruise to the Azores with the German RV Meteor in 2018) adds to the known species richness of well over 200 species, and also facilitates genetic analyses for the first time.

Sampling of Pliocene sediments in the island of Santa Maria during the regularly held workshops “Palaeontology in Atlantic Islands” has also yielded a rich fossil bryozoan fauna from the Azores, which allows putting the modern species into an evolutionary perspective.

Dierk Hebbeln is trained as a marine geologist, who is involved in cold-water coral research for ~20 years. Adopting this new research topic forced him to work along the interface of geology and biology. Combining biological observations using ROVs and geological investigations based on sedimentary records from cold-water coral mounds, provided numerous new insights on the distribution of cold-water corals, their needs, their long-term development, and their role within the fascinating deep-sea ecosystems they engineer.

He participated in 12 seagoing expeditions that focused on cold-water coral ecosystems, of which six were led by him. He works as a full professor at the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, Germany.

P. Madeira completed her PhD in Biology, specialization in Biodiversity, from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, in 2019. Her research focuses on the study of the biodiversity and biogeography of echinoderms, particularly in faunas of volcanic/oceanic islands in the Atlantic.

In the last 5 years, she has published 3 scientific articles as first author and 9 co-authored articles in international journals. In total, she is the co-author of 21 articles and 2 books. She regularly participates in national and international conferences, expeditions and oceanographic cruises and also in the organization of international workshops and congresses.

M. Hyžný obtained his PhD in Palaeontology at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia (2012). In 2013-2015, he was a post-doctoral researcher (Lise-Meitner-Programme) affiliated with the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria, studying the palaeobiogeography of Cenozoic decapod crustaceans.

Currently, he is affiliated with his Alma Mater in Bratislava. His research interests include systematics, fossil record and phylogeny of malacostracan crustaceans and Neogene geology and palaeontology of the former Central Paratethys Sea. Among decapods, his favourite group are fossorial ghost shrimps, famous for their immense impact on the intertidal and subtidal substrate properties. However, he feels at home with any crustacean animal with claws.

Adán Pérez García (Madrid, 1984) is a researcher at the Evolutionary Biology Group of the National University of Distance Education (Madrid, Spain), and an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of that University. He works on the analysis of the fossil record of various groups of reptiles. His main field of research corresponds to the study of the evolutionary history of the turtles, both European forms and taxa related to them that inhabited other continents (North America, South America, Asia and Africa).

He focused on the study of several Mesozoic turtle lineages during the development of his PhD Thesis (presented in 2012, obtaining the extraordinary doctorate award). He is currently developing the study of Cenozoic forms, while he also continues to work with Mesozoic taxa. He also collaborates in the study of other lineages. He is the author of about 120 scientific papers in journals of the Science Citation Index, and more than 200 contributions presented at specialized scientific conferences.

He has described more than 25 new genera and more than 20 new species of turtles, as well as several taxa corresponding to other groups of reptiles (e.g., Triassic sauropterygians and Cretaceous crocodiles). He has been involved in more than 15 scientific projects, being the main researcher of many of them. He has several predoctoral researchers under his charge. He has been an evaluator of numerous scientific papers sent to Science Citation Index journals (more than 50) and has participated in several national and foreign scientific committees, as well as in the evaluation of various European and non-European scientific project programs.

Luís Silva has a degree in Biology (1989), a PhD in Biology (2001, Plant Ecology) and a professorship in Biology (2015, Biostatistics and Ecological and Environmental Statistics). He has been an associate professor since 2020, in the University of the Azores. He taught in undergraduate, master’s and doctoral courses, mainly in the fields of biostatistics, quantitative methods, ecological statistics, ecology, and conservation. He supervised 10 doctoral students (4 in progress), 31 master's students and about 20 internships. He was director of the bachelor’s degree in Ecotourism, the master’s degrees in Plant Ecology, Biodiversity and Plant Biotechnology, and Environment, Health and Safety, having participated in the accreditation of all these courses.

He is particularly interested in modeling species distributions and the composition and structure of plant communities, and in Bayesian statistical models. He is a researcher at InBIO, a research network in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, where he coordinates the research group BIOISLE (Biodiversity and Islands, with 25 PhD researchers).

Participated in 29 research projects, with regional, national, or European funding, and published more than 70 articles in international journals with peer review, 31 articles in other journals, 8 articles in proceedings, participated in the edition of 9 books and 26 chapters of books. He participated in the organization of 21 national and international scientific meetings, having co-authored more than 50 posters and 125 oral communications. He participated in science outreach and outreach activities, through the co-authorship of outreach books, external commissions and services provided to public and private entities. He has focused his research on the study of the forest, with several projects dedicated to the ecological and economic valorization of the forests of the Azores.

He is also developing research dedicated to plant, microbial and phylogenetic diversity in different types of pasture. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Biochemical Genetics and, as a Red List Authority Coordinator, he is a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. At the University of the Azores, he integrates the General Council, and integrated the Scientific Council, being the director of the CIBIO-Açores Research Center. Presently, he holds the UNESCO Chair “Land within sea: biodiversity and sustainability in Atlantic islands”.

L. Baptista obtained her PhD in Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution from the University of Porto in 2023, with a project focusing on the genetic structure of marine invertebrates in the Azores Archipelago, developed between CIBIO-InBIO/BIOPOLIS (Portugal) and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU, Vienna, Austria). She is interested in unravelling the evolution and population dynamics of marine invertebrates in remote oceanic islands, focusing on gastropods and byozoans with non-planktotrophic larvae in the NE Atlantic. L. Baptista has been exploring the factors shaping dispersal and connectivity of species with non-planktotrophic larvae in the NE Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea using molecular datasets, interpreted in a multidisciplinary framework mainly considering morphology, ecology, and oceanography.

Rita Castilho is an Assistant Professor at the University of Algarve and a senior researcher at the Centre for Marine Sciences. She is an evolutionary biologist with wide-ranging interests in population genetics/genomics, phylogeography, seascape genetics and invasive species to understand the evolutionary history of species. Her research aims to understand the spatial and time intra and inter-specific diversification patterns and processes of biodiversity maintenance or erosion by using various data types and computational approaches.

She has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles (in prestigious journals such as Systematic Biology, Journal of Biogeography, Molecular Ecology and Proceedings of the Royal Society). Her mentoring and supervision of students includes 4 Post-Doctoral fellows, 7 PhD candidates and over 20 MSc students. Currently, R Castilho is an associate editor of two international journals, a board member of another two, and a reviewer for several journals and the co-lead of the Right-on-Track academic coaching initiative.

Regina L. Cunha obtained her PhD degree in Evolutionary Biology at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 2008. She is a researcher at CCMAR, Centre of Marine Sciences of Algarve, Portugal. Her research interests focus on integrating phylogeographic and molecular approaches to infer evolutionary processes that explain current patterns of genetic diversity in marine organisms, particularly on isolated oceanic islands.

She has worked on natural populations of marine snails from Cape Verde to address problems of speciation and geographic variation and to analyse the influence of historical processes, such as the effect of sea-level changes on the genetic structure of organisms.

Bernard Landau is active in fieldwork and autonomous academic study in Neogene Gastropod Palaeontology for 30 years. He wrote his first paper at the age of 17 with the guidance and logistical support of the Natural History Museum in London.

Curator of his personal collection, which is systematically arranged according to the latest international Molluscan Palaeontological works. It is an important collection, and probably one of the largest in private hands. Certainly one of the largest collections of Caribbean Neogene fossil gastropods. It has been consulted by numerous researchers, including Alan Beu of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences of Lower Hutt, New Zealand, Emily Vokes of Tulane Univerity, New Orleans, USA, Geraat Vermeij of the Department of Geology, University of California at Davis, USA, and Carlos Marques da Silva, Departamento de Geologia da Faculdadede Ciências de Lisboa, amongst others.

Pedro Casaleiro holds a degree in biology from the University of Lisbon, an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. He works in museums and science communication since 1990 starting at the National Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon (1991-1995), the Contents department of Lisbon EXPO'98 and the Pavilion of the Future as head of visits and acting director (1996-1998), member of the installing commission of the Pavilion of Knowledge - Ciência Viva and head of exhibitions (1999-2003), head of project of the adaptation of the Laboratorio Chimico of Coimbra University to a museum (2003-2006), member of directors board of the Science Museum of Coimbra University (2006-2015) and deputy director (2015-2019).

Since 2019 he is curator of the collections of the Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory of Coimbra University. He was invited professor of museum studies at the University of Porto (1996), at the University of Évora (1999), at the Coimbra Centre for Local Government Studies and Training (2000-2005) and since 2006 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Coimbra University, Masters and Ph.D. of cultural heritage and museology and Ph.D. of science communication and science education of the partnership between Coimbra and Aveiro Universities. He prepared the Coimbra University contribution for the PRISC - Portuguese Research Infrastructure of Scientific Collections project in 2013-2017 and was the PRISC local manager until 2019. Likewise, he was the Coimbra node manager of PORBIOTA - Portuguese E-Infrastructure for Information and Research on Biodiversity from 2015 to 2019.

S.P. Ávila graduated in Biology in 1995, completed a MSc in Insular Ecology and Evolution in 2001, and a PhD degree in Biology/Palaeontology in 2005 from the University of the Azores. He supervised 10 PhD students (6 in progress), 1 MSc and 10 internships. In 2005, he established his research group (MPB-Marine Palaeontology and Biogeography Lab), now with 18 members. He participated in 16 research projects, with regional, national, or European funding, and published 78 SCI articles, 28 articles in other journals, 10 books and 6 chapters of books, and edited 7 books.

He organized 16 advanced courses, 33 congresses and 31 scientific expeditions in the Azores, Madeira, Canaries and Cabo Verde archipelagos. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the “Santa Maria PalaeoPark”, appointed by the International Palaeontological Association. He is also the Scientific Advisor of the "Fossils’ House" Museum, at Santa Maria Island (Azores). Since 2005, he has been studying the patterns and processes of dispersal, colonization and speciation of shallow-water marine invertebrates in oceanic islands.

He is the main author of the most recent theory of marine island biogeography, the SLS – Sea-Level-Sensitive model of marine island biogeography. His team has expertise in marine molluscs, echinoderms, crustacean barnacles, ostracods, bryozoans and coralline algae forming rhodoliths. His main interests are the geological evolution of the NE-Atlantic islands, and the palaeontology, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of the Neogene to Recent ecosystems in reefless volcanic oceanic islands.

He is Associate Editor of Frontiers of Biogeography and of Frontiers in Marine Science, Subject editor of Biodiversity Data Journal, and an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, and Reviewer Board of Diversity. He is Taxonomic editor of the Paleobiology Database (https://paleobiodb.org/classic).

S.P. Ávila graduated in Biology in 1995, completed a MSc in Insular Ecology and Evolution in 2001, and a PhD degree in Biology/Palaeontology in 2005 from the University of the Azores. He supervised 10 PhD students (6 in progress), 1 MSc and 10 internships. In 2005, he established his research group (MPB-Marine Palaeontology and Biogeography Lab), now with 18 members. He participated in 16 research projects, with regional, national, or European funding, and published 78 SCI articles, 28 articles in other journals, 10 books and 6 chapters of books, and edited 7 books.

He organized 16 advanced courses, 33 congresses and 31 scientific expeditions in the Azores, Madeira, Canaries and Cabo Verde archipelagos. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the “Santa Maria PalaeoPark”, appointed by the International Palaeontological Association. He is also the Scientific Advisor of the "Fossils’ House" Museum, at Santa Maria Island (Azores). Since 2005, he has been studying the patterns and processes of dispersal, colonization and speciation of shallow-water marine invertebrates in oceanic islands.

He is the main author of the most recent theory of marine island biogeography, the SLS – Sea-Level-Sensitive model of marine island biogeography. His team has expertise in marine molluscs, echinoderms, crustacean barnacles, ostracods, bryozoans and coralline algae forming rhodoliths. His main interests are the geological evolution of the NE-Atlantic islands, and the palaeontology, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of the Neogene to Recent ecosystems in reefless volcanic oceanic islands.

He is Associate Editor of Frontiers of Biogeography and of Frontiers in Marine Science, Subject editor of Biodiversity Data Journal, and an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, and Reviewer Board of Diversity. He is Taxonomic editor of the Paleobiology Database (https://paleobiodb.org/classic).

S.P. Ávila graduated in Biology in 1995, completed a MSc in Insular Ecology and Evolution in 2001, and a PhD degree in Biology/Palaeontology in 2005 from the University of the Azores. He supervised 10 PhD students (6 in progress), 1 MSc and 10 internships. In 2005, he established his research group (MPB-Marine Palaeontology and Biogeography Lab), now with 18 members. He participated in 16 research projects, with regional, national, or European funding, and published 78 SCI articles, 28 articles in other journals, 10 books and 6 chapters of books, and edited 7 books.

He organized 16 advanced courses, 33 congresses and 31 scientific expeditions in the Azores, Madeira, Canaries and Cabo Verde archipelagos. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the “Santa Maria PalaeoPark”, appointed by the International Palaeontological Association. He is also the Scientific Advisor of the "Fossils’ House" Museum, at Santa Maria Island (Azores). Since 2005, he has been studying the patterns and processes of dispersal, colonization and speciation of shallow-water marine invertebrates in oceanic islands.

He is the main author of the most recent theory of marine island biogeography, the SLS – Sea-Level-Sensitive model of marine island biogeography. His team has expertise in marine molluscs, echinoderms, crustacean barnacles, ostracods, bryozoans and coralline algae forming rhodoliths. His main interests are the geological evolution of the NE-Atlantic islands, and the palaeontology, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of the Neogene to Recent ecosystems in reefless volcanic oceanic islands.

He is Associate Editor of Frontiers of Biogeography and of Frontiers in Marine Science, Subject editor of Biodiversity Data Journal, and an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, and Reviewer Board of Diversity. He is Taxonomic editor of the Paleobiology Database (https://paleobiodb.org/classic).

S.P. Ávila graduated in Biology in 1995, completed a MSc in Insular Ecology and Evolution in 2001, and a PhD degree in Biology/Palaeontology in 2005 from the University of the Azores. He supervised 10 PhD students (6 in progress), 1 MSc and 10 internships. In 2005, he established his research group (MPB-Marine Palaeontology and Biogeography Lab), now with 18 members. He participated in 16 research projects, with regional, national, or European funding, and published 78 SCI articles, 28 articles in other journals, 10 books and 6 chapters of books, and edited 7 books.

He organized 16 advanced courses, 33 congresses and 31 scientific expeditions in the Azores, Madeira, Canaries and Cabo Verde archipelagos. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the “Santa Maria PalaeoPark”, appointed by the International Palaeontological Association. He is also the Scientific Advisor of the "Fossils’ House" Museum, at Santa Maria Island (Azores). Since 2005, he has been studying the patterns and processes of dispersal, colonization and speciation of shallow-water marine invertebrates in oceanic islands.

He is the main author of the most recent theory of marine island biogeography, the SLS – Sea-Level-Sensitive model of marine island biogeography. His team has expertise in marine molluscs, echinoderms, crustacean barnacles, ostracods, bryozoans and coralline algae forming rhodoliths. His main interests are the geological evolution of the NE-Atlantic islands, and the palaeontology, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of the Neogene to Recent ecosystems in reefless volcanic oceanic islands.

He is Associate Editor of Frontiers of Biogeography and of Frontiers in Marine Science, Subject editor of Biodiversity Data Journal, and an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, and Reviewer Board of Diversity. He is Taxonomic editor of the Paleobiology Database (https://paleobiodb.org/classic).