Stefano Piraino (Ph.D. Mar. Environ. Sciences) is Professor of Zoology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Salento, Lecce. He acts as Scientific Coordinator or WP leader of several national and international (EU-funded) research projects on the biology, ecology, taxonomy and systematics of cnidarians and more generally on the evolution of basal metazoans. Current interests deal with jellyfish outbreaks (http://www.jellyrisk.eu ) and marine bioinvasions (http://www.marine-vectors.eu ), cnidarian taxonomy and systematics, and the molecular mechanisms of cell transdifferentation in medusae by Next Generation Sequencing approaches. Co-Founder and Past-President of the International Hydrozoan Society, member of the Board of the Italian Union of Zoologists, he published more than 80 articles in journals such as TREE, Developmental Biology, Journal of Comparative Neurology, MEPS, Marine Biology, PLoS ONE. He acted as Guest Editor of three symposium volumes in journals Biological Invasions, Marine Ecology, Scientia Marina. He has been recently appointed as member of the Steering Committee of the new EuroMarine Consortium.