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Dr. Francisco García De León has studied the population genetics, phylogeography, and evolution of marine and freshwater fishes for more than three decades. He received an MS in Biological Oceanology from the University of Western Brittany and University of Paris VI, France, and a PhD in Oceanology from the Aix-Marseille II University of the Mediterranean. He is currently head of the Laboratory of Conservation Genetics at the Biological Research Center of the Northwest SC (CIBNOR), where he serves as a mentor to many students in the master’s and doctorate program (Use, Management, and Preservation of Natural Resources) accredited by the CONAHCYT as National Postgraduate Program on Quality. He belongs to the CONAHCYT National System of Researchers, Level 3.

Since his early days, Francisco has been interested in the ecological and evolutionary processes that make up the diversity of fish in Mexico. His research uses genetic and genomic methods to study population genetics, landscape genetics, phylogeography, and evolution. Much of his research finds applications in conservation, fisheries, and aquaculture. He has helped create molecular genetics laboratories for the study of fish in Mexico and elsewhere (Chile, Honduras, Panama), and he has participated with binational Mexican American research groups to study native Mexican trout, fish from extreme environments (blind catfish, poecilids from extremophile environments), and endangered marine fish (e.g., totoaba from the Gulf of California) among others. Francisco is currently President of the Mexican Ichthyological Society AC (SIMAC), and he organized the XVII National Congress and IX Latin American Symposium of Ichthyology, which was held in the City of La Paz, BCS, Mexico, in 2023. Francisco has written more than 180 scientific and popular science articles.

Francisco joined the Editorial Board of Environmental Biology of Fishes in 2004. He has been a reviewer for many different journals, including Ichthyological Research, ICES Journal of Marine Science, Fisheries Research, Molecular Ecology, Evolutionary Applications, and PLoS ONE.