Dr Maria Dornelas

Maria Dornelas recently joined the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies at the Universidade de Aveiro, to study biodiversity patterns of deep-sea communities. She was a research fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University in Australia (2008-2009) studying coral community dynamics.

She was post-doctoral fellow at the University of St Andrews (2007) examining effects of environmental constraints on biodiversity patterns. She completed her PhD at James Cook University in 2006, during which she focused on neutral theory and coral communities.

Maria is interested understanding how ecological processes affect biodiversity patterns, and she likes combining fieldwork and mathematical models to address questions under this theme.