Valéria Catarina de Castro Giménez completed her bachelor's degree in biology in July 2018 at the University of Aveiro and her master's degree in February 2021 in Applied Biology at the University of Aveiro. She has experience in collecting and maintaining in the laboratory, in chronic exposures of marine invertebrate species to contaminants and evaluating physiological and biochemical impacts of different stressors on marine invertebrates. She is the first author of the paper "Effects of commonly used therapeutic drugs, paracetamol, and acetylsalicylic acid, on key physiological traits of the sea snail Gibbula umbilicalis" (IF: 2.914/Q1) and "Interplay of seasonality, major and trace elements: impacts on the polychaete Diopatra neapolitana" (IF: 5.079/Q1). She also is a co-author of the paper "Biochemical and behavioural alterations induced by Arsenic 2 and temperature in Hediste diversicolor of different growth 3 stages" (IF: 4.614/Q2). She has already participated in the organization of several events related to science and was part of a junior initiative in 2018, created at the University of Aveiro, called Scientific Junior Value. She knows how to speak 4 languages. Valéria had a research fellow in the project BIOGEOCLIM in the Department of Biology at the University of Aveiro testing behavioral, biochemical, and physical responses on polychaete species such as Arenicola marina and Hediste diversicolor. Also, in this fellowship, she was responsible for training master and undergraduate students and participated in the teaching of a workshop called "Combined effects of arsenic and emergent pollutants in polychaetes" in the curricular unit Biochemistry and Metabolism II, taught in the second year of the degree in Biology at UA. She presented a poster entitled "Evaluation of Seasonality and Metal Contamination in the Performance of the Polychaete Diopatra neapolitana Collected in Different Locations of Ria Aveiro" at the 31st SETAC event. Valéria had a master's fellowship in the project SALTFREE II at the Centre for Functional Ecology in the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias at the University of Coimbra where she was able to study the effects of PNECS under reference and anthropogenic impact conditions, using aquatic mesocosm tests and to set up and maintain aquatic mesocosm tests, as well as the subsequent collection and processing of samples for assessing the effects of soil salinization on various biological parameters. She also maintained several species in the laboratory such as Danio renio, Daphnia magna, Chironomus riparius and Hydra viridissima. She presented a poster entitled "Ecological quality standards in freshwaters vulnerable to seawater intrusion events: do Hydra sp. acclimate to low salinisation levels?" at SIBECOL event held at University of Aveiro in July 2022. Currently, Valéria is doing her PhD with an FCT grant since November 2022 with the title of "PLASTRACE: Plastic additives and trace elements in coastal systems: occurrence, bioaccumulation and impacts in marine invertebrates" with the supervision of Doctor Adília Pires, Professor Doctor Etelvina Figueira (UA) and Professor Doctor Martha Trujillo Toledo (USal).