Luis Filipe Das Neves Kalchhauser Cunha

Graduated in Biology at the University of the Azores (2005), with an MSc in Shellfish Biology, Culture and Fisheries from Bangor University (2006) and a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of the Azores (2012). He is an Assistant Researcher at the Center for Functional Ecology (University of Coimbra, Portugal; currently funded by a CEECIND/01986/2017 – FCT Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus. His research focuses on soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, with a particular interest in historical human-modified landscapes (e.g. Amazonian Dark Earth). He has been actively involved in several NGS-based genomic and transcriptomic projects on evolutionary ecology, phylogenetics and population genetics (and genomics) of metazoan organisms. Lately, he is interested in using animals closely associated with human activity, to infer ancient human movement (please see the “HookaWorm” research project). Luis Cunha is a molecular ecologist. During his PhD, he found that studying the particular and unique features of the reducing environments of geothermal biotopes was most interesting because the ephemeral nature of the geothermal field is expected to favour the colonization by species with remarkable colonization abilities. The volcanically active soil in Azores offered an ideal ‘natural laboratory’ to address such questions during his PhD project. A brief interruption due to parenthood and some extenuating circumstances impacted his publication record (during 2012-2013). Since his PhD completion, he has published >2.5 papers per year, and he has been actively communicating scientific achievements in international conferences & meetings. Currently, he is the joint-Director of the ‘Terra Preta de Indio’ international network. He has published in a range of different speciality journals in areas of ecotoxicology, invertebrate biology and soil biology with an impact factor, typically ranging between 4-10 (e.g., Scientific Reports, Heredity, GEB, STOTEN, GCB). He has one seminal chapter on soil fauna biology and currently shows an H-index of 15. Moreover, he has shown an extensive track record in taking personal initiative to forge collaborations, which have facilitated his personal development and delivered innovative and exciting science allowing him to secure more than ¿1.6M in research income (80% as co-I and 20% as PI), over the last 7 years. His research projects included 1 post-doctoral researcher and 2 PhD students, and he has supervised 9 MSc students and several undergraduate final-year projects. He has spent long periods dwelling in the Amazonia rainforest and in South African grasslands, preparing/ organising fieldwork and leading teams of both students and researchers (~20 members and 6 expeditions). He has been invited to give some seminal talks in subjects such ‘The use of transcriptomics in Ecotoxicology’ or for instance ‘Interculturality and knowledge in Life Sciences research’, which show how easy is for him to circulate around different research themes and public alike. The lack of funding for specific activities allowed him to engage with entrepreneurship and a case of crowdsourcing funding, which ended up featured in several media channels like Newsweek. He has also been an active reviewer (https://publons.com/a/149210), and he is a member of several societies such as SETAC, British Ecological Society, Systematic Biology Society, Society for the Study of Evolution and the International Society of Computational Biology.