Leonardo Feitosa

Leonardo Manir Feitosa graduated from the Federal University of Maranhão with a Bachelor’s in Biological Sciences in 2017. During his undergraduate career, Leonardo worked in different projects, including pollinator ecology in an Amazon forest fragment and a sea anemone species inventory in intertidal areas of the Gulf of Maranhão. However, he really found his ground when the opportunity to study shark and ray conservation came up in 2014. Since then, Leonardo has published several studies on distinct subjects such as local ecological knowledge, molecular biology and taxonomy. His senior thesis focused on identifying the shark and ray species caught and traded along the Brazilian Amazon coast through molecular methods. After graduation, Leonardo immediately started his master’s degree on Animal Biology at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), earning his degree in 2019. At UFPE, he focused on habitat use, distribution, and demographic analysis of the small tail shark, a critically endangered species occurring off the Brazilian Amazon Coast.

Now on the PhD at the Bren School, Leonardo’s research will move towards a wider geographical area of interest, tackling shark and ray bycatch broadly. His main goal is to study bycatch effects on Data Deficient species, and how to manage the fisheries responsible for high bycatch levels, while guaranteeing their sustainability.