PhD in Chemical Sciences, Marisa Fernández was in charge of the coordination of the Network of European National Reference Laboratories for Marine Toxins for more than 9 years at the EU Community Reference Laboratory on Marine Toxins. Since 2002, she is the Head of the Department of Control and Management of Marine Environment & Resources in CETMAR, where she has been coordinating regional, national and EU projects and networks related to maritime safety, marine pollution and marine litter. She was the project leader of the EU projects ARCOPOL, ARCOPOL plus and ARCOPOL Platform funded under the Atlantic Area Programme and of MARINER project funded by DG ECHO. From 2006, she is coordinating the Spanish Technological Platform for the Protection of the Coast and the Marine Environment PROTECMA funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and is currently leading CleanAtlantic project (Atlantic Area Programme).