Mónica Lopes-Marques (MLM) holds two Bachelor’s degrees, in Biology/Geology and in Genetics/Biotechnology, followed by an MSc in Comparative Genetics and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences (University of Porto, 2017). Her academic and research path has been centered on molecular and comparative genetics, with strong emphasis on gene evolution, genetic variation, and functional genomics. Her PhD, funded by a competitive FCT studentship (SFRH/BD/84238/2012), investigated the evolution of fatty acid metabolism in chordates, integrating comparative genomics and molecular approaches. This work provided expertise in genetic annotation, phylogenetic analysis, and functional interpretation of genetic variants across vertebrates. Postdoctoral work at i3S expanded her expertise in the genetics of metabolic disorders, focusing on genotype–phenotype correlations and the functional consequences of genetic variation. She established enzymatic and molecular assays to experimentally characterize the impact of mutations, linking sequence variation to protein function. Currently, as Co-Principal Investigator of the Animal Genetics and Evolution group at CIIMAR, MLM leads a research line on the genetic and metabolic adaptations of marine mammals. Her work emphasizes comparative genomics, gene annotation, and the identification of natural knockouts and pseudogenes, using marine mammals as unconventional models for human disease. Alongside her research career, MLM is an Invited Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, where for six years she lectured in the the Biology course and in MSc in Bioinformatics. Her teaching has focused on genetics, with particular emphasis on sequence analysis, genomic databases, and the interpretation of genetic variation.