Professor Nuno Ferrand de Almeida is the Director of CIBIO, Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (http://cibio.up.pt) (since its creation in 2002), and of InBIO Associate Laboratory (http://inbio.pt) (since its creation in 2011). He is Full Professor at the Department of Biology of the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, where he teaches genetics and evolution. He is also Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon (since 2013). Prof. Ferrand holds a BSc and a PhD in Biology from the University of Porto, and he is interested in evolutionary biology, particularly in genetic diversity patterns of natural populations, ecology, conservation, domestication and speciation. He has developed several research projects in these areas using the rabbit as main model. He has also studied the evolution of many amphibian and reptile species in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. Prof. Ferrand has published over 150 SCI papers, namely in Science, Nature Genetics, Molecular Biology and Evolution, PloS Genetics, Evolution, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Genetics, Molecular Ecology, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Heredity. He has authored three books, edited five books and has written eleven book chapters. He is the coordinator of the Teaming project BIOPOLIS, that addresses the upgrade of CIBIO to a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for R&D&I, through a teaming with a leading scientific institution, the University of Montpellier (France), and with the participation of Porto Business School (PBS; Portugal). He is the Director of the Doctoral Program in Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution (BIODIV) organized by the University of Porto and Lisbon, funded by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT). He has supervised 23 PhD theses, 21 MSc theses and 33 post-docs. He is currently supervising 9 PhD students and 6 post-docs. The research projects Prof. Ferrand coordinates are associated with multiple international collaborations including with the Universities of Berkeley, Arizona, Nebraska and Montana (US), the University of Montpellier (France), the Universities of Cambridge, York and East Anglia (England). In the last decade, this network has been extended to countries from other continents, especially Portuguese-speaking African countries, Brazil, and South Africa. In the African context Prof. Ferrand has launched the TwinLab initiative, consisting in partnerships for research, advanced training and capacity building, with institutions from Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. In 2017, InBIO was awarded the UNESCO Chair Life on Land which will foster interactions between TwinLabs in southern Africa. He also works and advises national governmental and non-governmental conservation bodies and private and public enterprises. He has established several contracts with industry, including four sponsored research chairs..