Ruben Heleno

Ruben Heleno is an Associate Professor at the Dept. of Life Sciences of the University of Coimbra and researcher at the Centre for Functional Ecology where he coordinates the Community Ecology Lab. His main research interest is in using species-interaction networks to frame important conservation problems at the community level. Such trophic or mutualistic networks offer a holistic viewpoint to evaluate the causes and consequences of disturbances, such as biotic invasions or defaunation, on key ecosystem functions, particularly seed-dispersal. He participated in 17 international projects in the Galapagos, Gorongosa, São Tomé, Seychelles, France, Germany, UK, Spain, and Portugal. This work resulted in over 100 publications in top-tier journals (40 as leading or senior author), including Nature (2), Science (2), PNAS (1), Nature Communications (4), and Ecology Letters (3). He has been invited as a plenary keynote speaker in 9 large international meetings and is an associate editor of the journal Functional Ecology. He integrated multiple steering committees, including the direction board of the Associate Laboratory TERRA and regularly acted as vice-chair of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship selection committee. He trained 14 Master students and 7 PhD students (+2 ongoing), all of whom are actively working in academia or science-related positions. He participated in over 40 academic juries and has been elected by the Biology students as best professor twice. He is currently the coordinator of the Master in Ecology of the University of Coimbra, where he teaches Global Change Ecology, Scientific Writing, Functional Ecology, and Biological Conservation.