Fernanda Cássio is a Biologist (1983, Univ Porto) with the PhD in Sciences, specialty in Microbiology (1994, Univ Minho). She is Full Professor at the Department of Biology in the Univ Minho. She was the former director of the Center for Molecular and Environmental Biology (CBMA), rated as very good by the FCT, for 6 years. She was a vice-director of the Biology Department (2007-2010). She was the former director of the Master in Ecology and she is the director of the BSc in Applied Biology. She is member of the Scientific Council and School Council of the School of Sciences. She is Associate Editor of the journals Limnetica and Nanomaterials. She is member of the Direction board of the Iberian Association of Limnology. She has been member of evaluation panels for grants and projects (e.g., FCT, ANR). She represents the Institute for Science and Innovation for Bio-sustainability into the Action for the Clima from the Municipality of Braga, and she was designated as vice-President. She participated as advisor for Environment Actions in Guimarães' candidacy for European Green Capital award. Fernanda Cássio research interests focus on assessing effects of persistent and emergent contaminant, such as metals, nanoparticles, pharmaceuticals, micro/nanoplastics and fungicides in freshwater ecosystems, across detrital food webs. Over the last years, she has been studying the impacts of emerging contaminants and unravels their cellular mechanisms of response, using omics. She created the largest culture collection of aquatic hyphomycetes, with more than 1500 strains containing about 60 fungal species out of the 350 described so far, headquartered at the CBMA. Fungi were isolated from rivers and streams in the North and Center of Portugal, but also includes isolates from the Azores, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, India and Australia. Since 2010, she has been participating in 18 research projects (9 as coordinator) either national (15) or international (3) projects. She has raised c.a. 5 million as PI or co-PI in competitive funding (FCT, EU, ANI). She has supervised 18 PhD students (6 ongoing); 26 MSc students (1 ongoing) and more than 50 BSc students. She published more than 130 articles in journals indexed to Scopus plus 5 book chapters. She organized several international meetings. She presented more than 200 communications at national and international scientific meetings. All students that F. Cássio supervised the PhD have successful careers such as positions at universities as researchers and teachers (6 students), at high school (1 student), at companies (2 students), and in municipal laboratories, doing research and science dissemination (1 student). F. Cássio launched Advanced International Courses, such as Ecotoxicology of emerging contaminants, River restoration, and Stress ecology. She created the Master in Ecology 2007 and she was involved in restructuring the Master in Ecology that now is called Biodiversity, Ecology and Global Change. She was member of the commission that created the graduation course in Environmental Sciences. She was member of the Commission for the creation of the PhD in Molecular and Environmental Biology, 2008. She has been participating in science dissemination activities for enhancing scientific literacy among young people and citizens. She was the leader of the project Science on the Roads to that consist of a mobile lab that can reach young people that live far away of the cities, which was supported by the Environmental Fund and the Braga City Council. She has been enrolled on the organization of field and lab activities (e.g. University Open Day, European Researcher Nights, Ciência Viva). She enrolled Biology undergraduate students and Ecology master students (70 students) in the project BioCampus, which aims to map the biodiversity in the Campus. She is mentoring the creation of a Museum devoted to Microbes that will be located in the Municipality of Lousada.