Diana Ochoa
About me
Most of us have gone to places where the landscape just takes our breath away. Places where the beauty of the ocean, mountains or valleys are just inspiring!!!... So, we just have to wonder how such landscapes were formed and preserved! Well, having that feeling and wondering such things is what I got to do thanks to my professional career..
Yes, I am Geologist, and within this vast field, I have specialized on study small-sized fossils (microfossils). They can be either from continental (pollen and spores) or marine (foraminifers) settings. I use them for understanding the evolution of some living forms and ecosystems throughout time, for reconstructing features of ancients environments, but also for building up relative time frames (bio/chronostratigraphy).
Geologist (palynologist by hearth) with a MSc in Biology and PhD in Geology with international mention. MyPhD thesis was funded by an MSCA-Initial Training Network program and honored with the Extraordinary Doctorate Award.
I am currently an Associate Professor at University of Salamanca-USAL. I was a Former Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at USAL, and I have completed two postdoctoral contracts in Peru at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia-UPCH. The first one was secured through a competitive international call (30 months). The second attained via a peer-reviewed attraction program involving World Bank funds (24 months). I have undertaken a 2-yr research internship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama (2007-2009), and research stays at Utrecht University (Netherlands, 2015), at the Sorbonne University (France, 2023), UPCH (Peru, 2023), STRI (Panama, 2025).