Rui Lourenço earned his degree in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon in 2000. His final dissertation of this 5-year degree was focused on owl ecology, framed in a project to identify ecological corridors led by the environmental NGO “Centro de Estudos da Avifauna Ibérica”. Subsequently, Rui worked in this NGO until 2005, carrying out activities of research, environmental education, science dissemination, nature conservation actions, and contribution to public policies. During this period, he started collaborating with the University of Évora, and he then went on to complete a master’s degree in Conservation Biology at this university, in 2005. His master’s dissertation focused on top predator ecology. Rui pursued his interest on interactions among top predators during his PhD in Biology, carried out from 2007 to 2011, having R&D Unit ICAAM (Univ. Évora) and Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC, Spain) as host institutions, and he supported by a doctoral degree fellowship by FCT. From 2012 to 2018, Rui had a 6-year post-doctoral fellowship awarded by FCT, to do research in ICAAM (Univ. Évora) in collaboration with Vincenzo Penteriani (EBD-CSIC) and Erkki Korpimäki (Univ. Turku, Finland), covering a broad range of topics related to top predators, including interspecific interactions, road ecology, and ecotoxicology. This was followed by a 1-year post-doctoral fellowship at ICAAM, Univ. Évora focused on bird ecological functions and ecosystem services in agro-ecosystems. In 2019, Rui earned a position as junior researcher in MED to carry out research focused on the relationships between biodiversity and human activities, in particular agriculture. Since March 2023, Rui has a permanent position as assistant researcher in MED / Univ. Évora. Rui has been one of the vice-directors of MED since 2020. Although his work is mostly focused on birds, being part of the Laboratory of Ornithology (LabOr), his career path led Rui to being an ecologist with varied research interests and a comprehensive and interdisciplinary vision.
