Dr Fernando Lopes started to work population genetics of fur seals and sea lions in 2010 as a student of biological sciences and undergraduate researcher at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos - UNISINOS (Brazil) under the supervision of Dr Larissa Oliveira. In 2015 he obtained his Master’s degree with a dissertation that investigated the genetic diversity and population structure of the Galapagos fur seals in the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul - PUCRS (Brazil) under the supervision of Dr Sandro L. Bonatto. In the same year and institution and under supervision and co-supervision of Dr Bonatto and Dr Oliveira, respectively, he started his PhD thesis, which culminated in the defence in 2019. During his PhD, he became specialized in molecular phylogenetics by investigating species relationships within Otariidae and evolution of fur seals by studying the complex radiation of Peruvian, South American, Galapagos and New Zealand fur seals by using genomic approach (whole-genome and reduced representation library sequencing). As part of his thesis, he experienced a period of sandwich PhD at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany). Fernando is a long-term collaborator of the Laboratory of Mammal Ecology (UNISINOS) and a member of the Laboratory of Genomics and Molecular Biology (PUCRS) where he also spent periods as a postdoctoral fellow. Currently, Fernando is investigating the species delimitations and the speciation process of fur seals focusing on events of hybrid speciation, genomic introgression and intra and interspecific gene flow.