João Balsa is a research assistant at the Azores Deep-Sea Research Group, part of Okeanos – Institute of Marine Sciences. His work primarily involves the processing of underwater images of deep-sea biology, captured mainly with the Azor Drift Cam, and the ongoing maintenance and improvement of this equipment. João has accumulated over 100 days at sea aboard various research vessels, notably the OceanXplorer (OceanX). He holds a BSc in Biology from Universidade de Évora (2020), during which he participated in the Erasmus program at Poznan University of Life Sciences (Poland), and an MSc in Marine and Coastal Systems from Universidade do Algarve. Throughout his academic journey, João gained comprehensive theoretical and practical expertise in oceanography and marine biology, including water chemical analysis, geological assessments, and physical oceanography. For his master’s thesis, titled "Meiofauna Assemblages from Cold Seeps in the Arctic," João was the first to characterize nematode diversity in cold seep habitats in the Arctic. This research was conducted under the multidisciplinary AKMA project (Advancing Knowledge on Methane in the Arctic), in collaboration with UiT (Norway) and WHOI (USA). He presented his findings at two international conferences. João’s experience also includes extensive volunteer work and internships at the Nematology Laboratory (Nemalab) at Universidade de Évora, where he honed sampling and laboratory techniques to investigate marine meiofauna. He continued his research as a fellow on the FLOWs project, studying meiofaunal organisms from abyssal areas along the Gloria Fault in the Atlantic Ocean. João has participated in the Eurofleets+ Floating University aboard RV Mário Ruivo and was selected for the 2022 Marine Robotics Summer School, organized by the MIT Portugal Program in collaboration with MIT, LSTS (FEUP), and the University of the Azores.