Sofia Matos Garcia is a biologist and Senior Technical Officer at the Regional Directorate for Maritime Policies of the Azores Government, Portugal. She holds a Master’s degree in Structural and Functional Biochemistry and has worked since 2015 on marine litter policy, monitoring and project coordination. Her work focuses on the implementation and reporting of marine litter programmes in the Azores, including beach litter, seafloor litter, microplastics and litter ingestion by seabirds. She represents the Azores in the OSPAR Intersessional Correspondence Group on Marine Litter and coordinates the regional expert group for the recently adopted Cory’s shearwater bioindicator in OSPAR Region V. She is also involved in several EU cooperation projects on marine litter, biodiversity and environmental monitoring.