I am a Lecturer at Macquarie University (MQ) in Sydney, Australia, and also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA). After finishing my PhD at UWA in 2013, I worked for two years as a postdoctoral research associate in the research groups of professors Leigh Simmons, Joseph Tomkins and Dale Roberts. In 2015 I became the principal investigator of the prestigious Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, which I held at the same university for the following three years. In 2018 I moved to Sydney to take up a fixed-term Lectureship at MQ, where I was based for approximately 2.5 years.

Since the COVID19 crisis hit Australian universities, I negotiated a split position between the university and a Western Australian environmental consulting company. I am currently based in Perth, where I am working at 80% for Bennelongia Environmental Consultants and 20% for Macquarie University.

Employment

2020 (current) Principal Biologist, Bennelongia Environmental Consultants (at 80%)

2018 (current) Lecturer, Macquarie University (full time 2018-2020; at 20% from April 2020)

2018 (current) Adjunct research fellow at University of Western Australia (UWA)

2018 (offer)    Assistant professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (declined)

2015–2017      Research fellow, UWA; Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award

2013–2014      Postdoctoral associate at UWA (Sponsors: Leigh W. Simmons and J. Dale Roberts)

Education

2009 – 2013 —PhD in Animal Science (Centre for Evolutionary Biology), School of Animal Biology, University of Western Australia, Perth - Australia. Thesis title: “The evolution of male dimorphism in arthropods” Supervisors: Leigh W. Simmons and Joseph L. Tomkins.

2006 - 2008 — MSc in Ecology, Institute of Biology, Campinas State University (Unicamp), Campinas - Brazil. Thesis title: “Reproductive biology of the harvestman Acutisoma proximum (Arachnida: Opiliones): alternative mating strategies among males and maternal care by females” Supervisor: Glauco Machado.

2001 – 2005 — Licentiate in Biological Sciences, Campinas State University (Unicamp), Campinas - Brazil.

2001 – 2005 — Bachelor in Biological Sciences, Campinas State University (Unicamp), Campinas - Brazil.

2019 MQ New Staff Grant (Macquarie University), Artificial selection for unobservable traits: the evolutionary potential of alternative phenotypes; AU$ 18,000

2019 National Geographic Society (~AU$ 29,000) and Australian Geographic Society(AU$ 2,000), Sydney funnel-web spiders: behaviour, mating system and population structure of the world’s deadliest spider

2015–2017 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (Australian Research Council), The development, ecology and evolution of alternative phenotypes; AU$ 349,699

2015–2016 Early Career Researcher Fellowship Support Grant (University of Western Australia), Population density effects on the evolution of alternative male phenotypes; AU$ 29,934

2012 – 2013 PhD Completion Scholarship from UWA: AU$ 12,000 (five months).

2012 – ISBE Travel award: US$ 1,000.00 to attend the 14th International Behavioral Ecology Congress, in Lund – Sweden.

2012 – UWA Travel award: AU$ 1,100.00 to attend the 14th International Behavioral Ecology Congress, in Lund – Sweden.

2011 – UWA Travel award: AU$ 750.00 to attend the annual meeting of the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour, in Adelaide – Australia.

2009 – 2012 —PhD scholarships: International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, CFH & EH Jenkins Award, and IDP Student Mobility Scholarship. AU$ 30,000.00 per year (for 3.5 years).

2006 – 2007 — Master research grant from CAPES (Brazil). US$ 12,127.66 (2 years).

2003 – 2005 — Undergraduate (honours) research grant from FAPESP (Brazil). US$ 4,681 (2 years).

Currently, my main research interest is male dimorphism, a phenomenon that often reflects alternative reproductive tactics among males: the large male morphs typically guard females or reproductive territories and have more elaborate weaponry; the small male morphs sneak copulations and have reduced weaponry. Male dimorphism is particularly common among arthropods, and usually results from a polyphenism: the differential expression of alternative phenotypes from a single genotype depending upon environmental conditions. My interest in the evolution of alternative mating tactics and male dimorphism led me into the topic of phenotypic plasticity. Therefore, in the last 5 years, part of my research has focused on threshold traits (polyphenisms), usually from a quantitative genetics perspective.

In 2015 I started a three year fellowship from the Australian Research Council, the competitive Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA). This fellowship funded my research project entitled “The development, ecology and evolution of alternative phenotypes”, which included experiments on conditional male dimorphism in dung beetles, bulb mites and harvestmen (arachnids from the order Opiliones). A large part of the project involved an artificial selection experiment in bulb mites, which showed that selection imposed in one male morph generates correlated evolutionary responses in the other morph . My DECRA has ended in December 2017, but I still have my selection lines (now at Macquarie University) and I am using them in creative ways to study the effects of selection on weapons on other naturally and sexually selected traits.