Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo is an ICREA Research Professor at the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF) in Barcelona. He earned a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Barcelona in 2002. He completed a post-doctoral stage at Dalhousie University (Canada). He has also performed short term research stages at the US DOE Joint Genome Institute, the University of Arkansas and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is an EMBO member and he is currently an EMBO mentor of two EMBO Young Investigators. Besides his research goals, he is also interested in the issues of leadership, mentoring, and work-life balance in academia.