Dr. Aurora Ruiz-Herrera’s activity is focused on understanding structural, functional and evolutionary aspects of genome organization, paying special attention to the germ line given its role in the transmission of genetic information through generations. She defended her PhD thesis in 2003 at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) supported by a PIF fellowship. After two postdoctoral stages in South Africa (Stellenbosch University) and Italy (University of Pavia) supported by a Fullbright/MEC fellowship and an Intra-European Fellowship (European Commission), respectively she settled at UAB where she leads her research group. In 2016 she was promoted to Associate Professor at the same University.

Since 2009 she has mentored +80 graduate students (undergrads, MSc students and PhD students) and has hosted several researchers and visitors from South Africa, Brazil, Italy, Poland, Cuba and Colombia. She has participated in +40 research projects (national and international) and has been involved in knowledge/technology transfer contracts and has engaged with the Industry. Up to date, she has co-authored +80 JCR articles, in journals such as Nature, Cell, Cell Reports, Nat Comms, PNAS, Genome Biol and Mol Biol Evol, among others. She has also contributed with more +200 communications presented at national and international research meetings.

Dr. Aurora Ruiz-Herrera has been involved in teaching activities since 1998 in both pre-graduated and post-graduate courses in different areas, such as Biology, Genetics, Cell Biology, Histology, Primatology and Genome Evolution. Worth mentioning is her participation in national and international PhD programmes, such as the MSc and PhD Program in Genetics Molecular Biology and Cellular Biology from University of Pavia (Italy). Likewise, she has been involved in several institutional responsibilities, such as Coordinator of postgraduate courses at UAB. She is member of various committees of evaluation and currently Deputy Coordinator of the Biology Degree at UAB (School of Biosciences). Dr. Aurora Ruiz-Herrera has also been involved in review activities in various scientific journals (+250 reviewed articles), as well as in government agencies (+40 research projects) from Spain, USA, UK, Czech Republic, Austria and Netherlands, among others.