Hello everyone! My name is Paula Cabanilles, I have recently graduated in the Master’s Degree in Marine Conservation at the University of Oviedo (Spain). To tell you a little bit about my story, I started my relationship with Biology studying the degree in my hometown, Valencia. During the third course I had the opportunity to study for a year in the University of Antioquia (Colombia) thanks to an exchange programme. I learned a lot there both from my teachers and my classmates who provided me with a wider view of this discipline. Thanks to that, I returned next summer to volunteer with National Natural Parks of Colombia. I spend two months in Uramba Bahia Malaga, a National Park located in the Pacific coast of this country where from June to October hundreds of humpback whales arrive to give birth and reproduce. I helped the biologist of the park monitoring this species as well as other cetaceans and birds. The project they were conducting was researching how the naval traffic affected the distribution of these animals. On this last academic course (2020-2021) I moved to the north of Spain in order to study the Master in Marine Conservation. As I was born and have grown all my life by the Mediterranean Sea, my connexion with all its environments and creatures is extremely tight and I cannot conceive of my life separated from the sea and without doing anything I can for its welfare. Thus, as a part of my master thesis I have been assessing microplastic pollutants in planktonic species. We discovered the transference of these items through a three-link food chain from euphasiids to hakes (Merluccius merluccius). During this study I have been able to become familiar with different genetic tools (DNA extraction and PCR) as well as data analysis and to improve my scientific writing.