Position Title
Visiting Scholar
Veronica Rodriguez Fernandez investigates parasites in aquatic ecosystems, focusing on Toxoplasma gondii in marine environments and Anisakidae as sentinels of marine ecosystem health. During her post-doc in La Sapienza University of Rome, she analyzes DNA, microsatellites, and gene expression in Anisakidae under thermal stress, including Antarctic isolates. She was awarded a starting research grant for the VITA-SHELL project, using Mytilus galloprovincialis as a sentinel species for the molecular detection and viability assessment of food-borne protozoa in marine environments. She has a longstanding collaboration with the Shapiro Lab at UC Davis, where she has visited twice as a visiting scholar to learn and apply molecular techniques for detecting protozoa in environmental samples, including seawater and oysters, and distinguishing viable protozoa from non-viable ones.