Dr. Pierluigi Carbonara has been a senior researcher at COISPA since 1997. He has a PhD in Sciences and Technologies applied to the Environment. He is a fisheries scientist with 25 years of experience in fishery biology and aquaculture. He has extensive experience in age reading and validation (otoliths, spines, vertebrae, etc.), and in the analysis of sex and maturity stage in fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods. He has been involved in the EU Data Collection Framework since 2002, coordinating trawl survey, discard, and landing sampling projects. He is responsible for the Experimental Aquaculture Laboratory (EAL) and the Energetic Metabolism and Telemetry Laboratory (EMTEL). He is the author/co-author of more than 60 scientific publications.