Dr. Sofia Ramalho is a deep-sea ecologist working at Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) of the University of Aveiro (Portugal). She holds a BSc in Biology from the University of Évora (2010), an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master of Sciences in Nematology (2012) and a PhD degree in Marine Sciences jointly awarded by University of Aveiro (Portugal) and Ghent University, as part of the European Joint Doctoral Programme on Marine Ecosystem Health and Conservation (MARES; 2017). During her PhD, she developed original research on the impact of trawling fisheries on the various components of deep-sea benthos (from meiofauna to megafauna) and its significance to the ecosystem functioning (e.g. carbon cycling). Since completing her PhD in late 2017, she has held two short-term research assistant positions and is now a Junior researcher at CESAM funded by the CEEC program from FCT. Her research is presently focused on 1) assessment of environmental drivers that shape deep-sea benthic diversity and functioning in various deep-sea habitats (i.e. abyssal plains, seamounts, cold seeps and hydrothermal vents) and 2) Impact assessment and conservation of deep-sea ecosystems under pressure from anthropogenic disturbance, such as deep-sea mining. She participated in 10 R&D projects, either as a research fellow or a member of the team, all developed in a multidisciplinary and international context. She has proven experience in sampling and experimental design onboard of oceanographic cruises; competences in sample processing for environmental and benthic faunal characterization, including meio, maco- and mega-epifauna (e.g. microscopy, imagery annotation). Familiarised with stable isotopic techniques and biogeochemical analyses used in experimental set-ups to monitor ecosystem functioning (e.g. carbon mineralization rates) and trait-based analyses.