Alejandro Izquierdo Lopez

I am a graduate from University of Barcelona (UB) in Spain, where I specialized in Natural history topics (botany, zoology, ecology). My Bachelor thesis was focused on science communication, and involved being part of the University journal B-On, where I wrote two monographs highlighting a scientific topic and the work done by different departments of the University in the topic, including interviews, directed to the other members of the university (students and faculty). I obtained later a Masters degree in Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, in Germany, where I specialized in ecology, evolution and systematics, mostly on morphological evolution of arthropods. My masters thesis focused on the evolution of praying mantises, using fossils and extant taxa. I am currently part of the Royal Ontario Museum and UofT in Toronto, Canada, where I study the evolution of the first arthropods, using fossils from the famous locality of the Burgess Shale, which has some of the first fossil animals on Earth. I have also collaborated on different sci-com projects, including my own blog (onelephantsandbacteria.net), as well as collaborations in other blogs and podcasts (sharpmindsweb.net- extinct, elpulgarldelpanda.com, La Linterna de Diógenes in iVoox), institutions (European Southern Observatories in Garching, Royal Ontario Museum), and clubs (Astronomical Society of Barcelona (ASTER), Friends of Paleontology at the ROM), as well as being editor in the wildlife app WildMentor (wildmentor.org). I am also fluent in four languages, including Spanish, Catalan, German and English.