Jesús Fernández Gutiérrez finished his degree in Biology in 2020 at the University of Vigo (UVigo). Then, he coursed a master in Marine Biology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) from 2020 to 2022. His degree and master dissertations were focused on the use of microcomputed tomography for the anatomical study of marine molluscs obtaining honours and one the maximum qualifications of his course, respectively. In 2023, he won the Master’s Extraordinary Award by the USC. Since 2019, he has done several research trainees at the Department of Ecology and Animal Biology of the UVigo and the Marine Biological Station of A Graña. From 2019 to 2020, he was granted with a research grant from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte of Spain in which he sorted and identified benthic invertebrates collected between 20-2000 m depth in Gabon as part of the project EcoAfrik. In 2022, he won a research grant in the framework of the ‘Transnational Youth Mobility Galeuropa’ from Xunta de Galicia and moved to the Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental of the University of Porto (CIIMAR) where he carried out his research until July 2023. In August 2023, he has awarded a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship by the FCT (2023.04100.BD) in the CIIMAR and CBMA where he is developing his PhD “Knowing and improving the ecological state of recreational marinas by using ecosystem engineers as nature-based solutions” in the framework of the project ‘Marina-Forests’. He has published 5 papers in international journals, 3 of them as first author and 2 as co-author, mainly related to alien calyptraeids invasion dynamics in NW Iberian Peninsula (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2024.108630 and https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse11010184), onchidiids internal anatomy (https://doi.org/10.15304/nacc.id8975) and benthic scavengers abundance (https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse11010184). Moreover, he has presented up to 14 communications at several international and national conferences, namely 8 oral presentations and 6 posters, 9 of them as first author. Most of these papers were/are supported by the projects ‘ATLANTIDA - Plataforma para a Monitorização do Oceano Atlântico Norte e Ferramentas para a Exploração Sustentável dos Recursos Marinhos’ funded by NORTE2020 in which he was involved and ‘Marina-Forests: Improving the ecological state of marinas by using animal forests as nature-based solution’ funded by the FCT. During his career, he has acquired experience in sampling techniques of benthic assemblages in intertidal and subtidal soft and hard bottoms. Moreover, he shows wide skills in sorting and identifying marine invertebrates to species level and measuring of environmental variables relevant for the study of benthic assemblages. He also has expertise in data analyses (ANOVA, PERMANOVA, MDS, PCO, DISTLM and dbRDA) in different softwares (Statistica, WinGMAV5, PRIMER, PERMANOVA and R programming). He is SCUBA diver with the highest level in recreational diving and coastal skipper. In addition, he is usually involved in outreach programs of scientific divulgation such as PlasticNONs, trying to raise awareness among young people of the problems associated with marine pollution and invasive species. In this regard, he has given several talks in schools and has participated in public awareness days.