Priscila Lopes is an associate professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, in Brazil. She holds a PhD in Ecology, but for over a decade her research has been interdisciplinary, mixing ecology methods with social sciences and economics.

Her work focuses on the understanding of the dynamics of small-scale-scale fisheries, fishers’ behaviour and strategies and reasons driving socio-ecological resilience and compliance. A focus of Priscila’s work is to unlock the potential for Local Ecological Knowledge to be a source of reliable quantitative scientific information that can contribute to conservation. Priscila also advises multiple Brazilian institutions on fisheries conflicts and provides them with independent assessments of development impacts on fishing communities livelihoods and food security.