Cristina Linares is Full Professor at the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and Researcher at the Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat at the University of Barcelona . Her research interests mainly focus on understanding the responses of Mediterranean marine benthic communities to global change to provide useful insights for the conservation and restoration of marine coastal ecosystems. To do this, she combines long-term series data, experimental studies using in situ and aquaria experiments and spatial and demographic modelling tools After completing her PhD in December 2006, she performed different research stages at renowned international centres such as the University of Santa Cruz (California, USA), Centre d’Oceanologie de Marseille (France), ARC Centre for Excellence of Coral Reef studies (Townsville, Australia) and the University of Hawaii (Manoa, USA). During her postdoctoral she was funded by competitive fellows such as Postdoctoral fellow, Juan de la Cierva, José Castillejo and Ramon y Cajal fellows by the Spanish Government. In 2017 she was promoted to Associate Professor and in 2020 to Full Professor. She has been awarded with 2019 ICREA Academia by the Catalan Government for her excellence in research at the University. She is author of 99 SCI publications (plus 2 in review). She is editor in PlosOne and Frontiers in Marine Sciences and has been reviewer for more than 60 different international journals. She has participated in more than 40 research projects, being the PI in several funded projects by Plan Nacional Parques Nacionales, European Comission (H2020 MERCES, LIFE INDEMARES), and from the Catalan and Balear Government (highlighting the scientific coordination of the project Monitoring of marine biodiversity in the Catalan Marine Protected Areas). She has participated as author or co-author in more than 60 contributions in congresses, and she is also the author of around 70 scientific-technical reports for different public administrations. As a professor she teaches in 7 courses at Degree and Master level (coordinating two of them). She is member of the academic commission of the doctoral program of Ecology and Vegetal Fisiology of the University of Barcelona. To date, she has supervised 7 doctoral theses, two postdoctoral researchers Beatriu de Pinós and one Juan de la Cierva incorporación, 18 master projects and 10 degree projects. Currently she is the primary supervisor of 2 doctoral thesis, 2 master projects, 3 degree projects and four postdoctoral researchers: Global Marie Curie, Beatriu de Pinòs, Maria Zambrano and Margarita Salas. All the supervised young researchers successfully continue their research careers within Academia or have contracts with the public administrations in works related to conservation, restoration and climate change.