Brief Biography
I am a community ecologist broadly interested in species interactions. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil, where I continue trying to answer questions like: Why some species interact with each other while others don't? How human activities disrupt species interactions and what we can do to mitigate the impacts?
My choice to be an ecologist was largely an excuse to spend time in nature and to seek a deeper understanding of the natural world. When I am not doing fieldwork, helping students or writing articles, most likely you can find me doing yoga, gardening, playing soccer or drinking “chimarrão” with friends.
1) What is your favorite color and why?
Dark green, because it is the colors of the forest which supports so many colorful and admirable organisms.
2) If you could go back in time, what era or scientist would you love to spend a day with and why.
I’d love to go back to the Cambrian period. I would certainly spend all my time trying to find a Pikaia, an odd eel-like animal that some 500 million later become us… humans! Pikaia is the oldest known ancestor of all vertebrates and it was quite rare at that time. Its lineage survived many natural catastrophes (like the asteroid the felt in Yucatan) and its survival is the reason we are here today