Iulia has always been captivated by the ocean and felt more at home under the waves than on land; her first time scuba diving solidified the idea that this was an ecosystem she desperately wanted to protect. She began her studies on the coast of France before moving to Florida to study one of the most diverse estuaries in North America, the Indian River Lagoon (IRL). During this time, she specialized in water quality analyses and worked to assessed various aspects of lagoon health with a focus on influencers and promoters of harmful algal blooms (HABs). Her thesis research addressed sediment composition and its effect on sediment oxygen demand and nutrient fluxes, nutrient speciation and its potential to promote seagrass growth or HABs. Upon completing her graduate studies Iulia joined an environmental consulting firm where she worked primarily on using remote sensing as an initial indicator of algal blooms in the IRL. In 2022, Iulia joined the Arabian Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences (ACCESS) and became part of the Marine Microbiomics Lab with the goal of analyzing the biochemistry of the Arabian/Persian Gulf and its response to climate change.