Dr. Josefa Antón is Professor of Microbiology and head of the Molecular Microbial Ecology group of the University of Alicante. After getting her PhD in the University of Alicante in 1989, under the supervision of Drs. Meseguer and Rodriguez-Valera, she moved to the University of California at Berkeley as a Fulbright Scholar and later joined the group of Prof. Amils at the University Autonomous of Madrid-Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa from 1992 to 1994, when she started a third postdoct in the lab of Prof. Rodríguez-Valera. In 1998 she spent three months as EMBO short term fellow in the Max-Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology in Bremen, in the group of Prof Amann. In 1999, Prof. Antón started her independent work and stablished the Molecular Microbial Ecology group, which has been receiving funding since then. Her research is mainly focused on the microbiota (including viruses) from hypersaline environments and marine sediments and the microbial symbionts of marine invertebrates. Her group has pioneered the study of ascidians and the coral Oculina patagonica microbiomes as well as that of viruses from hypersaline environments using culture independent approaches, such as whole genome sequencing using fosmids, or microarray techniques for metatranscriptomic analyses. One of her main research interests is to understand how microbes interact with viruses in nature and which forces drive and maintain microbial diversity using aquatic hypersaline systems as models.

In addition to her research activities, Prof. Antón is actively involved in teaching (she has taught more than 5000 hours of Microbiology, including General, Marine, Molecular, Food and Applied Microbiology) and she has supervised more than 20 Degree and Mater Theses, in addition to 11 PhD. Theses.

Metrics: Five research 6-year periods (until 31/12/2019) according to the Spanish agency for the evaluation of research (ANECA); 11 supervised PhD. Theses, 2 more currently in progress; more than 80 papers in scientific journals; 5619 cites; h Index = 42 (according to Google Scholar); 15 book chapters/contributions to encyclopedia; PI in 7 Spanish research grants and in 1 European Project.