Susana Santos

Graduate in Biology in 2008 and with a master degree in Applied Ecology since 2010 – University of Coimbra, Portugal. With a master thesis focused on microbial community in shorebirds and its relation with the microbial community of their habitat, I worked in collaboration with Institute for Marine Research (IMAR-CMA – microbiology area) in Coimbra and the Center for Biodiversity, Functional & Integrative Genomics (BioFIG/FCUL) in Lisbon. More recently I worked two years as a research assistant in the project HotMetal - Exploiting marine hydrothermal spots for diversity of metal resistance-strategies together with antibiotic resistance dissemination.

My scientific research currently is focused on microbial diversity in terrestrial environments. More specifically, study and understand the biodiversity of soil protozoa, with particular interest on predator-prey interactions of protozoa and bacteria and their importance for soil ecosystem functions. Development and optimization of news molecular diversity tools, to provide a better molecular characterization of soil biodiversity.