Micael Gonçalves (MGonçalves) is graduated in Biology (2014) and obtained his MSc degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology (2016) at University of Aveiro (UA, PT), where he later obtained a master's scholarship through a FCT project (199k EUR) at UA and Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon (UL, PT). In January 2022, MGonçalves completed his PhD studies in Biology (specialization in Microbiology) at the UA, in collaboration with Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Genomics Lab at University of Ghent (BE). During his PhD studies, he worked on microbial diversity, evolution and biotechnological potential with a special focus on fungi associated with marine environments. In March 2022, MGonçalves moved to the Microbiology division of the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto (FMUP, PT) with a Post-Doc fellowship granted through a competitive call of a European Union-funded project (588k EUR). MGonçalves investigated microbiological risk factors involved in prostate cancer and developed a multiplex real-time PCR diagnostic kit for detection of sexual transmitted pathogens (International Patent: PCT/IB2024/054896). Between July 2023 to August 2024, MGonçalves was a Doctorate Researcher at the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM, PT), developing work in an FCT-funded project (249k EUR) in collaboration with Aarhus University (DK). Recently, he secured a 6-year contract (200k EUR) as Junior Researcher (starting in February 2025), in the framework of the Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus (CEEC - 5th Edition) focused on the adaptability mechanisms of strictly marine fungi and their plasticity to salinity, shedding light on new research lines in marine fungal omics (e.g. lipidomic). In addition, he has also been engaged in teaching: in 2022 he was Assistant at the FMUP, and since 2023 he has been Invited Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of UP (FCUP, PT). Currently, MGonçalves is Invited Assistant Professor at the FCUP and UA, teaching Microbiology, Mycology, RNA Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology. MGonçalves has devoted his scientific career to understand the fundamentals of fungal evolution, phylogeny, and systematics. He discovered more than 30 new fungal species (and 2 genus) that are associated with different hosts and substrates. Hence, he possesses expertise in molecular microbiology, genomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics, and taxonomy. MGonçalves has been a member of international research projects, funded by FCT (3 complete); and EU (1 complete). Participation in projects with international partners expanded his contact network that he has used to visit the labs of YVan de Peer (BE), GGoeminne (BE), and PCrous (NL). As a result of his scientific activities, he published 38 publications in international peer-reviewed journals with more than 300 different authors (1 in Fungal Divers IF: 24.5; 2 in Persoonia IF: 10.0), 1 book chapter and 2 encyclopedia entries, of which he assumed lead (19), senior (3) and/or corresponding authorship (6). The international visibility of MGonçalves' work is supported by the well-deserved recognition of the Portuguese Society of Microbiology (SPM), and more than 940 citations and an h-index of 17 (Scopus). He has also contributed to the research community and the broader society as reviewer and guest editing roles. MGonçalves has more than 50 communications in the form of posters or seminars at conferences, meetings and classes, winning 4 awards. Moreover, MGonçalves supervised, co-supervised and mentored several BSc (5 complete, 2 ongoing), MSc (5 complete, 1 ongoing) and PhD (1 ongoing) students. As an organizer, he assumed local and scientific responsibilities in national and international conferences, and he actively participates in science dissemination & communication (average 2 times/year).