Rafael Valadares holds a PhD in Soils and Plant Nutrition from the Luiz de Queiroz School of Agriculture (Esalq/USP), a master’s degree in Agricultural Microbiology, and is an agronomist from the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture at the University of São Paulo (Cena-/USP). As a researcher at ITV DS, he focuses on soil microbiology and biochemistry, plant-microorganism interaction, and proteomics applied to environmental analysis.