Ana Branco Barbosa graduated in Marine Biology and Fisheries ( 1989), and obtained a PhD in Marine Sciences (Oceanography) in 2006, both at University of Algarve (UAlg), where she has been lecturing for the last 30 years. Currently, she is a tenured Assistant Professor (Faculty of Sciences and Technology, UAlg) and a member of the Center of Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA-UAlg). She has lectured undergraduate and post-graduate courses in the areas of biological oceanography and marine ecosystem dynamics. She was a member of the Coordinating Committees of the BSc and MSc Programmes in Marine Biology (UAlg, during ca. 10 years), and Director of this BSc. She also participated in several academic juries of PhD, MSc and graduation degrees. She has been developing research in Microbial Oceanography and Ecosystem Dynamics, and her major research interests include the regulation of planktonic communities, and effects of natural and anthropogenic-induced ecosystem changes. She has been involved in 21 national and international projects, being principal investigator or institutional coordinator in four projects. She has supervised one post-doctoral fellow, six doctoral thesis, 12 master thesis, nine graduate interns, and 33 undergraduate and master students during final degree projects and internships. She has presented ca. 90 communications (oral and poster) in international conferences. She has published 38 peer-reviewed articles, six book chapters, and edited a book on Zooplankton Ecology (Scopus H-index of 21). She collaborates with the Working Group on Phytoplankton and Microbial Ecology, International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES WGPME), since 2012, and is co-responsible for the Guadiana Upper Estuary marine ecological time series database. She is a reviewer for 27 indexed-scientific journals, and evaluator of international grants and research project proposals (IFS, CNPQ, MOST, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche).