Welcome

This is my personal page. For our group page, please see here. I am an evolutionary biologist working in the interface of evolutionary biology, genomics and ecology.

Short bio

I am interested in fundamental questions in ecological change and genome evolution (see my research tab). I combine genomic data (reference genomes, population/species-level sampling), together with ecological and phenotypic data from non-model organisms to understand how species evolve, focusing on the processes of adaptation and speciation.

While I work on multiple projects, I am especially passionate about evolution on islands, as these offer excellent models of evolutionary research (see research tab).

I am open to collaboration, contact and inquiries from the general public, press or peers. Feel free to contact me from at jose.cerca (at) gmail.com

For editors looking for reviewers for peer-review

Thank you for considering me. I am happy to review manuscripts, particularly for society journals. My areas of expertise lie in the fields of evolutionary biology, ecology, and genomics. For a comprehensive list of my publications, please refer to my scholar tab.

More about myself

I am originally from the quaint and charming town of Guarda, Portugal which will always hold a special place in my heart. At 18, I moved to Coimbra to pursue a degree in Biology from the Universidade de Coimbra and later went on to complete a one-year Erasmus in Siena, Italy. After obtaining my MSc in Ecology from the University of Coimbra, I embarked on a journey of discovery that led me to complete a PhD from the Natural History Museum in Oslo, where I developed a fondness for Norway. Since then, I have lived and worked in various places including Berkeley, Davis, Trondheim, Galápagos, and mainland Ecuador.

In my free time, I am an avid sports enthusiast. I also enjoy keeping up with politics, spending time with friends, watching TV shows, and hiking. All in all, aside from my professional pursuits, I would consider myself a fairly typical person.