Joana Cruz (JC) has finished her PhD on Marine Sciences at the University of Lisbon (2020). She has a MSc Degree in Marine and Coastal Studies at the University of Algarve (2007) and completed the BSc (5 years degree) in Biology Applied to Animal Resources (Marine) at the University of Lisbon (2000). In 2023, she has won a Junior Research Contract funded by FCT under the "5th Edition of Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus", focusing on monitoring plastic pollution through the bottom to the top of aquatic food webs. Previously, she was working at the S2AQUAcoLAB (Sustainable and Smart Aquaculture Collaborative Laboratory) as an Assistant Researcher on the impacts of environment and climate changes in aquaculture. JC has been co-responsible for the zooplankton long term monitoring stations in Guadiana estuary (https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/copepod/time-series/pt-30201/) and Ria Formosa lagoon system. In the last 8 years, she has been an invited Assistant Professor at the University of Algarve, teaching courses in Marine Biology, Biology, and Coastal and Marine Management BSc degrees (Plankton: Organisms and Processes, Biological Oceanography, Invertebrates Biology, Marine Ecosystems), and in 2021 has been awarded with the "Teaching and Learning Award UALG 2020 - Teacher of the Year distinguished by Students" by the University of Algarve. She has participated in several national and international projects concerning different areas, and was the Co Principal Investigator of the exploratory project "Photo-Plas", funded by FCT, and currently the Co Principal Investigator of the project SOFTCRAB – Innovate in crab production for consumption in Southern Europe. She has contributed to 35 scientific research papers, book chapters and reports. She has focused mainly on zooplankton ecology research, as well as on other research fields such as non-indigenous species, jellyfish trophic ecology, fish larvae recruitment, benthic ecology and microplastic pollution. JC participated in several seminars and conferences. JC has contributed to peer-revision of several scientific journals and was a Guest Editor of Diversity for the Special Issue "Advances in the Diversity and Ecology of Zooplankton". She is currently co-supervising 3 PhD, 1 MSc and 3 BSc students, and has already co-supervised several BSc and MSc students in final projects, thesis and experimental works. JC participated as a jury of thesis project evaluations (Master's level, Brazil). Moreover, she has been actively participating in activities aiming at transferring knowledge to general public related to the importance of studying zooplankton and microplastics pollution.