My main research and teaching interests are in evolution and conservation biology. I was born and raised in Uruguaiana - a town in the Pampas grassland in Brazil. In 1986 I moved to the coast to study Biological Oceanography (BSc and Msc), ichthyology and population genetics at University of Rio Grande. In 1996 I moved to Sydney for a PhD in fish evolutionary genetics, awarded by Macquarie University in 2001. I was a Gaylord Donnelley Environmental Research Fellow at Yale University (2001-2003) working in projects in Amazonia and the Galapagos, before returning to Australia for a tenure faculty position at Macquarie. I worked at Macquarie until 2009 as Associate Professor and head of the Molecular Ecology Lab and the Molecular Ecology Group for Marine Research (MEGMAR). In 2009 I moved to Adelaide to establish the Molecular Ecology Lab at Flinders University - today one of the most productive such labs in the country.

My research illustrates how natural historians and molecular ecologists can contribute to our understanding of evolution and ecology and stimulate public interest about the importance of conserving biodiversity. A large component of the work carried out in my research group combines information from genetics, genomics and Earth sciences to understand the origins and evolutionary trajectories of populations and to inform conservation management. I currently work on projects in the areas of: - ecological genomics: the use of genome-wide information to assess environmental correlates and adaptive potential of aquatic biodiversity (i.e. seascape and riverscape genomics);