On June 9, the General Assembly of the Young Academy of Spain elected the new members of its Governing Board during an extraordinary meeting held as part of its regular leadership renewal process. Rosa Fernández, Principal Investigator at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint research center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), was elected to serve as Board Member 1 for a one-year term.

“Being part of the AJE Governing Board is an opportunity to continue promoting spaces for dialogue among the scientific community, institutions, and society. At a time when research requires more open, diverse, and interconnected structures, the Young Academy of Spain can play a key role as a meeting point for new generations of researchers,” Fernández said.

About the Young Academy of Spain

The Young Academy of Spain, also known as AJdE or AJE, was established in 2019 by Royal Decree to provide visibility and representation for early-career researchers, promote science as a professional career, foster scientific training, and contribute to discussions on science policy.

The appointment of Rosa Fernández to the Governing Board strengthens IBE’s presence in scientific representation bodies and recognizes her outstanding career in evolutionary biology and comparative genomics. Membership in the Academy is limited to five years, encouraging the continuous incorporation of new voices from the Spanish research community.

The Young Academy of Spain brings together young researchers and professionals from a wide range of disciplines, including science, engineering, humanities, arts, and social sciences. Its members are based across Spain and internationally. They are distinguished by outstanding careers supported by numerous competitive grants, including prestigious European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships. Collectively, they hold more than 100 patents, have launched entrepreneurial initiatives, and have received top-level recognition across multiple fields of knowledge.

“For me, this new stage is also an opportunity to give back some of what the Young Academy of Spain has offered me since I joined: a highly valuable space for exchange, collaboration, and scientific representation. I would like to help more young researchers find in the AJE a platform through which they can make their ideas heard and actively contribute to the future of science in Spain,” Fernández added.

About Rosa Fernández

Rosa Fernández has been a Full Member of the Young Academy of Spain since 2024 and leads the Metazoa Phylogenomics and Genome Evolution research group at IBE. Her work focuses on studying the animal tree of life using genomic and phylogenomic tools, with particular interest in the origin and evolution of terrestrial animal biodiversity from marine ancestors.

She earned her undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the Complutense University of Madrid and carried out postdoctoral research at Harvard University, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) before joining IBE as a Principal Investigator in 2020. Throughout her career, she has published more than 90 scientific papers and secured highly competitive funding, including an ERC Starting Grant, an Early Career Grant from the Human Frontier Science Program, Horizon Europe projects, and grants from the Spanish State Research Agency.

In addition to her research activities, Fernández is actively involved in international scientific initiatives. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA), one of Europe’s leading initiatives for sequencing the continent’s biodiversity.