Grounded in 17 years of coral reef field experience across the globe, Renato’s research blends ecosystem functioning, macroecology, natural resource science, and oceanography by integrating field data, modeling, and meta-analysis. Growing up in landlocked rural Brazil, Renato gradually made his way to the coast, where he completed a B.Sc. and M.S. at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, followed by a major dispersal event for a Ph.D. and brief postdoctoral appointment at James Cook University (Australia). In 2022, Renato was awarded a Branco Weiss Fellowship – Society in Science, hosted at CRIOBE (Paris Sciences and Letters University) in Perpignan, France. While the fellowship continues, in early 2026 Renato moved to KAUST to establish his own research group. The Reef–Ocean Connectivity Knowledge Hub (ROCKNHub) addresses the fundamental question of what drives reef productivity and the biological and human dimensions that emerge from it.