About Me

I am fascinated by the diversity of forms and behaviors among open-ocean invertebrates. While marine vertebrates are fast, smart, robust, and successful as torpedoes with a frontal mouth, there are many equally-successful animals that are weak, slow, small, soft, and delicate — living in the daunting, vast, structureless void of the midwater. Evolution has produced extremely creative and fascinating ways of surviving in this environment.

I am a Research Support Technician at Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Cádiz working on novel pharmacological targets for tuberous sclerosis in humans. I earned my Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Yale University in 2021, focused on siphonophore diets, the evolution of their tentacle prey-capture apparatus, and the roles of vertical distribution and prey selection in their trophic ecology. I then did a postdoc in the Sutherland Lab at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon, focused on the evolution of colonial architecture in salps and its relationship to swimming performance. For every group of marine pelagic invertebrates, my primary research interest has been the diversity of forms, understanding its evolutionary history, and how this diversity impacts their ecological roles in the ecosystem.

I was born and raised in Valencia, Spain. I have always been an avid naturalist for the weird and underappreciated creatures of the world. As a teenager, I started SCUBA diving and discovered the astonishing oddity and diversity of marine invertebrates, which soon became my special interest.

I love exploring nature, cooking paella, collecting lichens and arthropods, playing fantasy RPG games, practicing nomadic martial archery, crafting bows and arrows, singing karaoke, as well as playing piano, guitar, & ukulele.