João Balsa obtained his BSc degree in Biology at the Universidade de Évora (Portugal) in 2020 and his master's degree in marine and coastal systems at the University of Algarve two years later. His master's thesis on the subject "Meiofauna assemblages from cold seeps in the Arctic", aimed to characterize, for the first time, the nematode diversity of cold seeps habitats in the Arctic in the scope of the multidisciplinary project AKMA - "Advancing knowledge on methane in the Arctic" (UiT, Norway and WHOI, USA). João presented part of his work at two international conferences. Before his thesis, he did several hours of volunteer work and an internship at the Laboratory of Nematology of Universidade de Évora (Nemalab), focused on learning sampling and laboratory processing techniques to investigate marine meiofauna, from estuaries and deep-sea environments. A research fellowship then followed this in the same lab part of the FLOWs project, where he studied meiofaunal organisms from abyssal areas along the Gloria fault in the Atlantic Ocean, participated in "Eurofleets+ Floating University" onboard RV Mário Ruivo for one month and the selection for the 2022 Marine Robotics summer school, organized by the MIT Portugal program in collaboration with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), LSTS (FEUP) and the University of Azores. Currently, he works as a research assistant at Okeanos, aiming to characterize the benthic megafauna in the Azores deep-sea and continuing development of the Azor drift-cam.