Affiliation: University of Aveiro, Department of Biology & CESAM

Isabel Lopes obtained her PhD degree in Biology (with specialization in Ecology) in 2003 at the University of Coimbra. At present, she is a Principal Researcher at CESAM and Department of Biology of the University of Aveiro, where she develops independent research on ecological risk assessment, namely in the fields of aquatic and evolutionary ecotoxicology. Within these research fields, she has been o focused on the characterization of environmental effects of natural and anthropogenic stressors across different taxonomic groups and levels of biological organization. Recently, and given the ethical issues related with animal experimentation within risk assessment frameworks, she started to be interested in developing non-animal alternatives to be used in first tiers of risk assessment of chemicals to the Class of vertebrates Amphibia.