Rafael is currently a Junior Researcher contracted in the scope of the STOP.SUZUKII project.

Rafael José Carvalho Mendes is a Junior Researcher (Doctorate) at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto. BSc in Biology (UTAD), MSc in Clinical Laboratory Biology (UTAD), and Ph.D. in Biology (UP). In the last 5 years, he carried out his research work in the area of plant and microbial cellular and molecular biology within the scope of his Ph.D. thesis entitled "Genotypic and phenotypic profiles of Erwinia amylovora isolates associated with fire blight outbreaks in Portugal, and their susceptibility to antimicrobial peptides". He is currently a member of LAQV / REQUIMTE, and is a contributor to CITAB and CIBIO-InBIO (BIOPOLIS association). He masters cell biology techniques (eg, cell labeling by fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry), and functional analysis (eg, carbon metabolism, cell toxicity, energy). He masters molecular, cellular, and functional studies in microbial and plant models. In the last 5 years, he has been (co)author (main, group leader, co-author, corresponding author) of 19 international WoS articles (majority Q1), 6 IH, and 3 national technical-scientific dissemination articles. Since his doctorate, he has established his team in pathosystems (from cell to pathosystem) currently with 3 master scholarship holders, and has supervised 2 undergraduate students. Guest editor of 1 international magazine Q1 "Horticulturae". Guest reviewer of 28 international articles. He participates in 4 national projects, highlighting the R&D and co-promotion projects DrosuGreen, STOP.SUZUKII (Task Leader of tasks 1 and 4 at FCUP), and KiwiBol. He also has vast experience in science communication and dissemination, having organized 12 national and international conferences and workshops so far. During and after his training, he participated in scientific communications at several national and international scientific congresses.