Leônidas Melo works as Associate Professor at the Soil Science Department of the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA). Dr. Melo earned a B.S. degree in Agronomy (2005) and an M.S. degree in Soil Science (2007) from UFLA and a Dr. degree in Soils and Plant Nutrition from the University of Sao Paulo (2011), with a training period at the RIVM Institute in The Netherlands. Before joining UFLA in 2015, Dr. Melo was a Postdoctoral fellow at the Instituto Agronômico de Campinas working in soil chemistry and soil pollution (2011-2013), and served as Assistant Professor of Soil Fertility at the Federal University of Viçosa (2013-2015). He completed a sabbatical period (2019-2020) as visiting scholar at Cornell University (Johannes Lehmann Lab). He serves as an advisor for graduate and undergraduate students at the Soil Science Graduate Program at UFLA. His research focuses on studying processes on nutrient cycling and dynamics in soil and their interactions with plants, more specifically on the development of biochar-based organomineral fertilizers, methods for recovering nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) from aqueous media and reuse as fertilizers, nanotechnology applied to fertilizers’ development and strategies to improve circularity in agroecosystems. He is currently a research fellow of CNPq.