Who we are

Current members

Researchers, fellows and collaborators who are currently part of the Leptomar laboratory.

Dr. Flavio Quintana

CONICET Senior Researcher

PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). CONICET Senior Researcher. Director of the Institute of Biology of Marine Organisms (IBIOMAR) and member of the Board of Directors of the CONICET-CENPAT Scientific and Technological Center between 2015 and 2019. Head of the Laboratory of Ecology of Marine Top Predators (LEPTOMAR). He was an Associate Researcher of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Earthwatch Institute, and a Scientific Advisor to the Fundación Ecocentro. Over the last 35 years, he has worked in the field of the biology of seabirds and marine mammals, contributing information and knowledge to the management of ocean diversity, with more than 170 scientific publications, 190 presentations at scientific conferences, 50 research grants and the training of dozens of researchers through the supervision of fellowships and doctoral theses.

Email CONICET profile CV View papers

Dra. Agustina Gómez-Laich

CONICET Independent Researcher

PhD in Biological Sciences from the National University of Mar del Plata (UNMdP). Independent Researcher (CONICET). She is part of the Laboratory of Ecology of Marine Top Predators (LEPTOMAR). Her work focuses on the study of the feeding behavior of seabirds, mainly divers, through the use of different electronic devices (GPS, pressure sensors, accelerometers, video cameras). Her studies seek to determine how these animals make use of space, time and energy at different scales of analysis. Her research is reflected in more than 35 scientific publications and presentations at national and international conferences.

Email CV View papers

Dra. Gabriela Blanco

CONICET Adjunct Researcher

PhD in Biology, she was a student of the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco and completed her doctorate at Drexel University (Philadelphia). She is currently a CONICET Adjunct Researcher and part of the Laboratory of Ecology of Marine Top Predators at IBIOMAR. She is also part of the group of researchers of the Earthwatch Institute. Her research line focuses mainly on the spatial ecology of seabirds and sea turtles.

Email CONICET profile CV View papers

Dr. Walter Svagelj

CONICET Adjunct Researcher

PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. CONICET Adjunct Researcher, working at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Research (CONICET-UNMdP), Mar del Plata. His research focuses on the behavioral and reproductive ecology of birds, mainly in relation to the study of the evolution of behaviors and life-history traits, parental care and investment, age-specific effects, sex-specific environmental effects, and brood reduction. In addition, through teaching, he uses, develops and disseminates the use of applied statistics tools (GLM, GLMM, NLMM). He has extensive teaching experience at undergraduate and graduate levels.

Email CONICET profile CV View papers

Dra. Luciana Gallo

CONICET Assistant Researcher

PhD in Animal Science from the National University of the Center of the Province of Buenos Aires (UNCPBA, School of Veterinary Sciences). CONICET Assistant Researcher (IBIOMAR). Her research focuses on the study of various indicators of health status and general physical condition of seabirds that breed on the Patagonian coast. She currently leads projects related to plastic ingestion and its effects on seabirds. Her research is reflected in 21 scientific publications and more than 50 presentations at national and international conferences.

Email CONICET profile CV View papers

Dra. María Monserrat Del Caño

CONICET Doctoral Fellow

PhD in Biological Sciences from the National University of Comahue, she is currently a postdoctoral researcher at LEPTOMAR. Her thesis focused on the use of accelerometry to study food-provisioning and food-soliciting behavior in birds. Previously, she studied prey capture in the Magellanic Penguin using individuals equipped with miniaturized submersible cameras and acceleration sensors on different parts of the body. As of 2025, her work is reflected in four scientific publications and 11 presentations at national and international conferences.

Email CONICET profile CV View papers

Lic. Fabian Gabelli

Associate Researcher; Adjunct Professor, School of Psychology, UBA

He holds a degree in Biological Sciences (FCEyN, UBA) and is an Adjunct Professor in the Chair of Behavioral Biology, School of Psychology, UBA. UBACyT-trained researcher. Devoted to the study of animal behavior, learning mechanisms and conservation. The results of his academic work have been published in: Animal Learning and Behaviour, Behavioural Processes, Biological Conservation, Studies in Avian Biology, among others. Since 1989 he has developed an interdisciplinary area between the behavioral sciences and film production, based on scientific procedures to improve animal performance and welfare in the film industry, participating in more than 50 feature films and hundreds of commercials. Since 2018 he has joined the group, collaborating on experimental and observational studies related to the mechanisms of orientation and navigation on land of the Magellanic Penguin.

Email CV

Associate researchers

Dr. Martín Brogger

CONICET Adjunct Researcher

PhD and holder of a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. He currently works as a CONICET Adjunct Researcher. He has worked with marine invertebrates for more than 20 years and is a specialist in the biology and biodiversity of echinoderms (Echinodermata), being a specialist member of the group within the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He currently carries out his research at the Laboratory of Reproduction and Integrative Biology of Marine Invertebrates. He is an Associate Curator of the CENPAT Invertebrate Collection and a member and founder of ProyectoSub, an outreach initiative that aims to raise awareness of the marine organisms and ecosystems of the Argentine coasts and the problems they face. He is a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) pilot, and since 2018 he has joined LEPTOMAR, collaborating on studies applying the use of drones as tools to generate information in scientific research.

Email CONICET profile CV View papers

Prof. Dr. Rory Paul Wilson

Associate Researcher; Swansea University, Wales

Rory Wilson, professor of Zoology at Swansea University, Wales, leads the Swansea Lab for Animal Movement (SLAM). He is a global expert in animal ecology, behavior and movement, using electronic devices to study animals without direct observation. He has worked with a variety of species on several continents. In 2006, he received a Rolex Award for Enterprise for his 'Daily Diary', a lightweight device that records an animal's movement, behavior, energy expenditure and environmental conditions. The collaboration with Professor Wilson began in 2004, benefiting from the synergy between LEPTOMAR's ecological knowledge and SLAM's technological development.

Email View papers

Giacomo Dell'Omo

Associate Researcher

Giacomo is a non-specialist naturalist biologist. He has worked with a broad spectrum of species of interest, from raptors to seabirds and from iguanas to rodents. He is a founding member of Ornis Italica, a Foundation dedicated to the study and conservation of birds and the conservation of the environment. His work in collaboration with international specialists contributes to the scientific knowledge of the behavioral ecology of birds and other species. He has a particular ability to solve problems related to tracking animals under field conditions, supported by his knowledge of electronic technology and his extensive field experience. Giacomo was the first person to develop and instrument a bird with a GPS device more than twenty years ago. For more than 15 years he has been conceiving, developing and promoting the use of different electronic devices for the study of animal movement and behavior through TechnoSmart.

Email View papers

Dra. Marcela Uhart

Associate Researcher; UC Davis

Veterinarian (National University of the Center, Argentina), she leads the Latin America Program of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, University of California, Davis. Coordinator of the IUCN Wildlife Health Specialist Group in South America and a member of several international organizations. Her work focuses on the health and conservation of wildlife, particularly marine wildlife. Founder and co-director of the Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring Program, she also coordinates projects with penguins and seabirds. Her research covers infectious and zoonotic diseases, pollutants and risks arising from human interactions. Her work emphasizes the conservation of biodiversity and the health of ecosystems, recognizing the interconnections between wildlife, humans, domestic animals and the environment.

Email CONICET profile CV View papers

Prof. Ken Yoda

Associate Researcher; Nagoya University, Japan

Ken Yoda is a professor of animal behavior and evolution at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Japan. His research focuses on the use of state-of-the-art electronic devices that record information on position, speed, acceleration, temperature and neural activity, among others, to study the behavior of a broad spectrum of animals, both marine and terrestrial (gulls, shearwaters, boobies, albatrosses and bats). Professor Yoda has authored several pioneering articles on the use of technologies for the study of behavior. Among them, the first work on the use of accelerometers in free-living animals (Yoda et al. 1999), the use of video cameras in seabirds (Yoda et al. 2010) and the design of electronic devices powered by artificial intelligence (Korpela et al. 2020). Our collaboration with Prof. Yoda dates from mid-2010 and is reflected in several publications, including the article by Yamamoto et al. 2019 in Current Biology.

Email View papers