I started my academic journey with a degree in Biology at Universidade Estadual de Maringá. During my undergrad, I was lucky to work at NUPELIA (one of the pioneering research groups in Limnology in Brazil), which has as its main study site the Upper Paraná River floodplain. It was at that time when my interest in freshwater ecology and microalgae, specifically diatoms, began.

In my Master’s, I switched from studying the Upper Paraná River Floodplain to start studying high-altitude streams in southern Brazil. I did my Masters in Biology of Continental Aquatic Environments at FURG working with Fabiana looking at the effects of grazers structuring stream benthic diatom communities (available here).

As a PhD student in Ecology at UFRGS, I’m working with Luciane Crossetti and I am co-supervised by Fabiana.