Carlos Pedrós-Alió holds a PhD in Biology Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) and is a research professor at the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB) of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). He has worked for 25 years at the Marine Sciences Institute in Barcelona, CSIC, and is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology. He has worked in both polar areas, hypersaline environments and hot springs in Patagonia, Atacama and Costa Rica. He has been a member of the SCAR-Spain committee, the European Polar Board and the International Census of Marine Microbes. His scientific interest is to understand the ecology and diversity of microorganisms using genomics and massive sequencing. He has published three popular science books: A Desert of Water, Life at the Limits, and Under the Skin of the Ocean.