Professor Francesca Cima earned her degree in natural sciences from the University of Padova in 1990. In 1991, she attained her PhD in evolutionary biology from the same university with the dissertation ‘Haemocytes and immunity in the colonial ascidian Botryllus schlosseri’. From 1996 to 1998, she carried out a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the research field of evolutionary biology in the Department of Biology at the University of Padova. In 1998, she was awarded Paolo Gatto’s National Prize of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome) for her work on the environmental problems of the Lagoon of Venice. In 1999, she obtained a two-year research collaboration fellowship under the project ‘Differentiation and cell interactions in tunicates’ with a two-year renewal. In 2000, she was the scientific chief of the research project for young researchers titled ‘Development of new bioindicators and biomarkers for the study of environmental impact by organotin compounds on coastal ecosystems’. From 2005 to 2018, she was an assistant professor of comparative anatomy and cytology at the Department of Biology, University of Padova. She is now an associate professor at the same university and teaches cell biology, principles of animal biology, and evolutionary history of vertebrates.