Rui Orlando Pimenta Santos studied at the University of Lisbon, Portugal and at the University of Dalhousie, Canada, where he received his PhD in Biology. He has worked at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and at the National Laboratory of Engineering and Industrial Technology, Portugal, on the resource valorization and management for the seaweed-based industry. He was appointed as Assistant Professor at University of Algarve in 1993, promoted to Associate Professor in 1999 and habilitated in in Marine Ecology in 2005. He has served as president of the Scientific Council of the university, as president and vice-president of the Pedagogical Council and as head of the Department of Biology and Bioengineering. He serves or has served on the editorial boards of Marine Environmental Research, Marine Ecology and Estuaries and Coasts, and as referee of research projects for several funding organizations in the EU, USA and Chile. RS is the leader of the thematic line Global Environmental Change of CCMAR, the Center of Marine Sciences of the University of Algarve and the coordinator of the research group Algae-Marine Plant Ecology of CCMAR. RS has more than 25 years of academic experience teaching in the areas of Ecology, Ecophysiology and Marine Botany, at undergraduate and graduate levels. He has also a large experience in public outreach of science in the form of public talks, training teachers or on media news and programs. He leads the scientific input of REASE, an environmental education network for ecosystem services of coastal systems involving public schools and education centers in Portugal. RS has over 150 scientific publications, over 4600 citations, i index of 40 and i10 index of 113 (http://scholar.google.pt/citations?user=zCFvYk8AAAAJ&hl=pt-PT&oi=ao). His research has focused on marine and coastal plants, including macroalgae, seagrasses and saltmarshes, at multiple integrative levels, from genes to ecosystem management. His present broader interests focus on the effects of human impacts, including ocean acidification, temperature and eutrophication on the cycling of carbon and nitrogen of coastal vegetated ecosystems, particularly seagrasses and calcareous algae.