Elsa Teresa Santos Rodrigues

Experiência

Elsa has her research affiliation to the Centre for Functional Ecology - Science for People & the Planet (University of Coimbra). In this centre, she integrates the Marine Resources, Conservation and Technology research group. At international level, she is linked to the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC) and is a collaborator of the Experimental and Applied Aquatic Ecology research group of the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO, Brazil).
Elsa received her PhD degree in Biosciences (speciality in Toxicology) from the University of Coimbra on June 1, 2016. Currently, she holds a senior technician position at the University of Coimbra campus in Figueira da Foz.
Elsa is an aquatic ecologist and ecotoxicologist whose main research interest lies in the study of the effects of environmentally relevant hazardous substances on the aquatic compartment at different levels of the biological organization, from sub-cellular (mitochondria toxicity assessment) and cellular (cell-based toxicity assays) levels, to individual organisms and communities. In parallel, she is concerned with the potential adverse effect of pollutants in the context of human exposure via food items, as numerous aquatic species are edible and considered of economic interest. She also develops research activities related to alternative in vitro cell-based assays in aquatic ecotoxicology. She has recently begun to explore the bioactive compounds present in macroalgae and halophytes from the Portuguese coast regarding their anti-tumoral and anti-bacterial properties.
Elsa integrated three scientific research projects as team member, and in 2024 coordinated a FAM Foundation grant aiming to comprehensively evaluate Portuguese macroalgae and halophytes as a promising source of phytochemicals with antimicrobial activity. Currently, she is team member of PLASTICBUG: Understanding microplastics-mediated dissemination and trophic transfer of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
To date (February 2, 2026), she has a total of 32 Web of Science publications (668 times cited) in the quartiles Q1 (78%), Q2 (19%) and Q3 (3%). In 66% of these articles, she is first or last author, and in one third foreign teams were involved. She is also co-author of a United Nations SDG-14 Springer Encyclopaedia chapter.
With her PhD thesis, Elsa awarded an honourable mention, ranked third, of the Doctorate Award in Ecology 2017- Amadeu Dias Foundation by the Portuguese Ecological Society (SPECO).