On Monday, June 17, the General Board of the Young Academy of Spain held an extraordinary meeting to select 7 new members. Among them is Rosa Fernández, Principal Investigator at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint center of CSIC and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), where she leads the Metazoa Phylogenomics Lab group.

The selection process involved an independent international committee comprised of prestigious researchers from various fields of knowledge. There were 142 applications for this call. In addition to academic merits, other factors such as diversity and the multidisciplinary nature of their work areas were considered.

The average age of the seven new Academicians is 40 years, with four women and three men being selected, achieving full parity in the Young Academy of Spain. Their profiles cover various fields of knowledge, including archaeology, sociology, biology, medical applications, electrocatalysis, theoretical chemistry, and phylogenomics.

The new full members of the Young Academy of Spain are José Jaime Baldoví Jachán, Elena del Corro García, Rosa María Fernández García, Francisco Pelayo García de Arquer, Irene Lebrusán Murillo, Ana Ortega Molina, and Carlos Tornero Dacasa. Among them are 5 recipients of prestigious European Research Council grants, 2 recipients of competitive Marie Curie Sklodowska actions, 7 recipients of excellence programs in Spain, including 5 Ramón y Cajal researchers, and they have secured significant public and private funding: Leonardo grants from the BBVA Foundation, La Caixa Foundation, Banco Santander Foundation, and the Spanish Association Against Cancer. In total, the 7 new members of the Young Academy of Spain have authored more than 400 articles and developed 11 patents. Additionally, they have received notable recognitions such as the Felisa Martín Bravo National Research Award, the Young Researcher Award from the Spanish Royal Society of Physics, the Margaritas Salas Award, and the L'Oréal UNESCO Award.

About Rosa Fernández

Rosa Fernández holds a Bachelor's and PhD in Biology from the Complutense University of Madrid. She has completed postdoctoral stays at Harvard University (USA) and the Center for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona). Currently, she is a CSIC Tenured Scientist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, where she leads the Metazoa Phylogenomics Lab.

Her research focuses on understanding the evolutionary origin of terrestrial animal biodiversity through comparative genomic studies. She generates genomic data from little-studied animal lineages and applies cutting-edge bioinformatics tools to decipher how they have changed over time and space.

She has been awarded numerous international research prizes, including the prestigious European Research Council Grant (ERC Starting Grant, 2020) and the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Early Career Grant (2022). She is also a member of the executive board of ERGA (2023).

About the Young Academy of Spain

The Young Academy of Spain was founded in 2019 by 7 Spanish researchers belonging to the Global Young Academy. Its objectives include:

1. Promoting science as a professional option among youth by showcasing exceptional young individuals from any country, particularly Spain, as role models.

2. Promoting scientific training through the encouragement of knowledge, research, and innovation as drivers of economic development, and supporting the exchange between young researchers from different institutions, both national and international.

3. Serving as a forum and platform for young researchers in our country to have the opportunity to collaborate and contribute to shaping knowledge promotion policies in Spain.

4. Allowing young Spanish researchers working abroad to be part of the Academy to serve as a link between these researchers and our country.

One distinguishing feature of the Young Academy of Spain is that membership is limited to 5 years. This peculiarity helps preserve the youthfulness of the 50 members, with 10 (7 this year) new members joining each year to replace those whose membership ends that year. This year marked the first replacement.

The Young Academy of Spain stands out for its multidisciplinary nature, with professionals from diverse fields such as computer science, engineering, archaeology, cultural anthropology, paleontology, pharmacy, veterinary science, biology, chemistry, psychology, physics, European politics and culture, tourism, art history, dance, neuroscience, ecology, environment, mathematics, artificial intelligence, sports science, linguistics, philology, food technology, and philosophy.

Among all the young members of the academy, they have more than 100 patents and several business adventures, in addition to numerous awards and competitive grants.