Lara Macheriotou is a marine biologist with a BSc in Marine Biology from the University of Oregon (U.S.A.) and an Erasmus Mundus MSc in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. Her MSc thesis investigated the role of intraspecific functional trait variability in a free-living marine nematode under thermal stress. Her current Phd work is focused on the biodiversity and biogeography of deep-sea nematodes of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone using first and Next Generation Sequencing methodologies.