Rafael is an Informatic Technician and undergraduate in Biological Sciences at the Federal University of Viçosa. Currently, he is part of the Quantitative Genetics and Statistical Learning Lab - UFV and a member of the Genetic Improvement Group - GenMelhor. Simultaneously, he has ongoing scientific initiation in the field of fish physiology and nutrition. He is a former member of the Biology Junior Enterprise of UFV - In Bio. He interned at the Center for Conservation of Squirrels - CCSS, where he worked on in situ management and assisted in nutritional monitoring.