ELENA MARIA
FERNANDEZ GONZALEZ

Associate Professor at the Oviedo University. My research professional career has been devoted to the study of seedless plants, in particular ferns (Monylophytes). I got my PhD, in 1993, with the highest outstanding Cum Laude rating. In 1994-95, I then completed a postgraduate stay at the INRA center, in Orléans, France, under the cover of a European project, training in chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques. It served to stablish several collaborations with other universities and research centers, such as the Universities of León (Spain), or Guelp (Florida, USA), on different subjects: somatic embryogenesis in Vitis, biotechnological methods in hop, etc. In 2003, I engaged the Ramón y Cajal National Program, to work with the free-living gametophyte generation in ferns, to deepen on plant reproduction. Given the difficulties found to create my own team, I had to be member of other projects, and trying to cooperate with forein Institutions interested in my work. I was accepted as guest researcher in the prestigious Dr. Ueli Grossniklaus’lab, expertise in plant reproduction, and especially in apomixis. I visited him since 2012, at the Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich. The challenge was to use the gametophye of the not yet sequenced apogamous fern species Dryopteris affinis ssp. affinis, diploid and obligate. I was granted by the Spanish Government, and my own University, and also supported by the University of Zurich and the project PRIMEXS-0002520 funded by the European Union’s 7th Framework Program. We have published the first transcriptome of an apogamous fern species (Grossmann et al. 2017), by using proteogenomics. The research done was subject of several publications, being in the most part of them first or last author, except in a few cases, despite to be invited to be last author by Prof. Ueli Grossniklaus. My production comprises 56 articles, including indexed high/medium impact journals (34), edited books with Springer (3), in 2011 (36,000 downloads), in 2018 (29,000 downloads), and in 2022 (17.000 downloads) and book chapters (13), being the first or last position and corresponding authors in most of them. I have attended 45 National and International Meetings. So far, I was IP on a Regional, 2 National, and 1 International project, and member of 8 National projects. I am reviewer of several ISI journals (Genes, Plant Journal, Planta, etc.), Guest editor at IJMS and Frontiers on Plant Sciences. My activity linked to industry is reduced to a couple of contracts in the past, with Plant Biotechnology S.L. in 1988, the Foundation Bosch i Gimpera in 1993, and a Regional project in 2004-2006. Along these years, I have directed 3 Doctoral Theses (one in progress), 4 Bachelor's Thesis, 3 DEA, 10 End Degree Project and 7 End Master Project. I have 4 sexennia, 4 quinquennia and 7 triennia. Member of the Spanish Society of Plant Physiology and the Spanish Society of In Vitro Culture of Plant Cells and Tissues. Always interested in collaborating in outreach tasks whenever I have the opportunity, at regional, national or internationals scale. The most recent are: The international fascination day of plants (2015, 2022, 2023, 2024), Pint of Science (2018), Talks of the Bioali Network (2020), etc. In parallel with the teaching and research activity, I engaged the position of Academic Secretary of the Faculty of Biology for five and half a year, (2011-2017). https://fernandezelena9.wixsite.com/helenafernandez