Biography

Santiago Hernández-León is a biological oceanographer at the Institute of Oceanography and Global Change in the Canary Islands. He obtained the degree in biology in 1980 and received a Ph.D. in Oceanography in 1986 from the Universidad de La Laguna (Canary Islands). He was awarded as the best PhD thesis in 1986 from the Government of the Canary Islands. He performed research stays in France (1983) at IFREMER, United States of America (1984) at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, and Norway (1993) at the Institute of Marine Research. He obtained the lecture degree (Profesor Titular) in 1989 and he is nowadays (since 2001) professor of zoology (Catedrático) in the marine sciences school at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He published more than 100 papers (see below), most of them in peer reviewed journals with relatively high impact factors. He has been the supervisor of 12 PhD thesis and several master thesis. He participated in more than 30 research projects (from regional, national and European agencies), leading 10 as principal investigator. His research interest is related to the effect of climate on the ecology and physiology of plankton communities. He has been working on the role of micro- and mesozooplankton in the oceanic carbon flux from the Arctic to Antarctica, but he is especially interested in the assessment of the active flux due to vertical migrants in subtropical waters. He is also interested in the study of trophic cascades and how they affect the ocean biogeochemistry. He participated in more than 40 oceanographic cruises, 8 in polar areas. Academically, Dr. Hernández-León has more than 30 years of teaching experience, mainly in physiology, ecology and biological oceanography. He has been vice-dean from 1994 to 1998 and Dean from 2004 to 2009 of the marine sciences school at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He also was Director of the University Summer Courses in Gran Canaria from 2008 to 2011.