Born in Bilbao, Soraya began her degree in Biology at the University of the Basque Country and later moved to Madrid to specialize in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She graduated from the UAM in 1989. For her PhD studies, she joined Dr. Morata’s laboratory at the CBMSO, where she conducted research in Drosophila developmental genetics. She was supported by a Basque Government predoctoral fellowship and obtained her PhD from UAM in 1993. For her postdoctoral training, she moved from flies to flowers by joining Dr. Yanofsky’s laboratory at the UCSD. There, she carried out research in developmental biology using Arabidopsis thaliana, supported by fellowships from the Spanish MEC and the HFSP. In 2001, she was awarded a Ramón y Cajal, and in 2003 she became ICREA Research Professor to lead her research in Floral induction and development at CRAG. She also undertook research stays at UNAM (Mexico), WUR (The Netherlands), the MPIPZ (Germany), and NYU and the NYBG (USA).

The connection between crop production, climate change, and demographic growth is progressively uncovering a profound impact in food security throughout the world. Because plants are sessile organisms, they maximize their chances to survive adversities by reprogramming their development for adaptation to environmental changes. Under this scenario, integrative approaches to understand the specific role of essential genetic regulatory networks in plants are urgently needed. RAV genes configure a potential hub to modulate plant development in response to adverse environmental conditions, which are major limiting factors for plant survival, adaptation, and crop production. Therefore, we perform a comprehensive functional study of RAV genes along the green tree of life. We analyze their gene regulatory networks in abiotic stress responses and aim to decipher RAV gene evolution and function acquisition unravelling their roles from non-flowering plants to flowering plants.