Irina Gorodetskaya

Principle Investigator

Since 2022, senior researcher at CIIMAR (Porto). Her work focuses on Polar meteorology and climate, water cycle, extreme weather events, atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere interactions, combining observations and regional climate modelling. Participated in expeditions in the Arctic Ocean, Antarctica and Southern Ocean. Currently leading projects on the polar climate and water cycle with a wide international collaboration. A lead author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report.

About Me

Senior and Junior researchers

Principle Investigator

Catarina Magalhães

Catarina isdedicated to understanding how microscopic life shapes natural environments and responds to ecosystem functioning, from the icy waters of the Arctic and Antarctica to the deep sea and coastal ecosystems. I work as a researcher at CIIMAR and teach at the University of Porto. I also serve on the coordination committee of the Portuguese Polar Program. In my research, I combine oceanographic expeditions, laboratory experiments, and advanced genomic approaches, such as metagenomics and metatranscriptomics, to investigate how these invisible communities respond to environmental change. I am actively involved in several national and international marine microbiome monitoring programs, contributing to global efforts to standardize microbiome research and data sharing. I particularly value collaborative work and the opportunity to bring together multidisciplinary teams to address key challenges in marine science.

Junior resercher

Carla Gama

Carla Gama has a PhD in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of Aveiro (2018). Her PhD research was carried out in collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre in Spain. She is currently a researcher at the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies at the University of Aveiro, working in the field of atmospheric sciences and air quality modelling. In recent years, Carla has participated in several national and European research projects. She is currently Principal Investigator of the PRUNING project - Mapping agricultural waste burning from satellite data and modelling impacts on air quality, and Co-Principal Investigator of the ATLACE project - Atlantic interactions through the atmospheric hydrological cycle: exploiting data from the Antarctic Circum-Navigation Expedition for a better understanding of clouds and precipitation. He has published more than 30 articles in international journals such as Environmental Research, Tellus B, Atmospheric Environment, Science of the Total Environment and Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health

Researcher

Luis R. Vieira

Luis R. Vieira is a researcher at CIIMAR-UP. His research focuses on ecology and ecotoxicology, covering several priority topics, including coastal and estuarine ecology, biodiversity, water quality assessment, ecosystem vulnerability, contaminants of emerging concern (e.g., marine litter and microplastics), the combined effects of multiple stressors on organisms, and the impacts of climate change and other pressures on aquatic life. He also works at the science-policy-society interface, in multisectoral stakeholder engagement, and in promoting ocean literacy. Luis R. Vieira is the author of several indicators of scientific production in Environmental Sciences, including several books and chapters in international books and publications in scientific journals.

Assistant Researcher

Isabel Iglesias

Isabel Iglesias is an Assistant Researcher and Co-PI of the LOAI research team of the CIIMAR. Isabel’s main scientific areas are physical oceanography, atmosphere-ocean interaction, marine litter, nature-based solutions, anthropogenic interventions impacts, deep-sea mining, extreme events, climatology and climate change. She works with numerical models applied to oceanic, coastal and estuarine regions to understand present and future hydrodynamic conditions, providing knowledge, technology and solutions for a sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystem services. She also has experience in planning, performing and analysing data from short- and long-term campaigns, and in the evaluation of remote sensing data.

PhD Students

2nd year PhD Student

Sharath Chandra Thota

Sharath Chandra Thota is a Second-year PhD student at CIIMAR, holding a Master’s in Biology of Extreme Environments from Italy and a Master’s in Biotechnology from India. Passionate about extreme environments and their microbes, his research is supervised by Irina Gorodetskaya and Catarina Megalhaes, funded by an AIR Center grant. He explores atmospheric rivers’ role in extreme temperatures and precipitation and their potential effect on microbial biodiversity on the Antarctic Peninsula. Experienced with fungi, bacteria, viruses, haptophytes, and diatoms, he also evaluated SARS-CoV-2 in the air during COVID-19. His past research includes studies on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and Svalbard permafrost microbial diversity.

3rd Year PhD Student

Eva Lopes

Eva Lopes holds a Master’s degree in Marine Sciences – Marine Resources, with a specialization in Marine Biology and Ecology from the University of Porto. She is currently pursuing a PhD in the doctoral program “Marine Science, Technology and Management” at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto. Her research focuses on understanding how the Atlantification phenomenon — the warming of Arctic Ocean waters due to the influx of warmer Atlantic waters — impacts microbial communities, with a particular emphasis on their diversity, inter-species interactions, and the nitrogen cycle. To support her research, Eva collaborates with the Norwegian Polar Institute and conducts fieldwork at the Ny-Ålesund science station. In addition, she participated in Arctic Pacific Ocean research expeditions aboard the RV Mirai (JAMSTEC) in 2023 and 2024.

2nd year PhD Student

Diogo Luis

Diogo Luís is currently a PhD student in Physics. His PhD thesis title is “Dusty Atmospheric Rivers: relationship between intense transport of water vapour and aerosols in the Iberian Peninsula”. He holds a Master’s degree in Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and a Degree in Meteorology, Oceanography and Geophysics, both by University of Aveiro. His research interests include the study of the hydrological cycle, atmospheric rivers, atmospheric aerosols, aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions, and atmospheric modelling.

Fellow researchers

Ksenija Vučković

Ksenija holds a Master’s Diploma in Biodiversity, Genetics, and Evolution from the University of Porto. Her Master’s thesis at CIIMAR focused on microorganisms involved in ice nucleation and cloud condensation in Antarctic precipitation. Currently, she is a fellow under the AntClimNow Stewardship Scheme from SCAR, working on improving access to climate-related data for Antarctica. As part of the APMAR25 and MicroANT projects, she studies the role of Atmospheric Rivers in the transport of microorganisms in the Antarctic Peninsula.

Alizée de Groodt

Alizée De Groodt is a research fellow at CIIMAR who holds a Master’s degree in Oceanography and Meteorology from the University of Aveiro. As part of the MAPS project, she investigated the interaction between breaking ocean waves and Atmospheric Rivers in the Antarctic region using numerical models. She is also working with Lagrangian models to study the transport of microplastics and contaminants in estuarine environments. She believes that interdisciplinary research is key to understanding complex ocean-atmosphere interactions and addressing environmental challenges.