Luis Alberto Gómez Nava graduated from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in 2012, focusing on quantum dynamical systems of bosons trapped in harmonic potentials. Later, he finished a master thesis in the Physics Institute of the same university (UNAM), where he studied the dynamics of self-propelled particles in a 2D stochastic system. He then moved to Nice, in the south of France, where he worked on his PhD in collective phenomena in biological and artificial systems. His research area is theoretical physics. At SCIoI, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher focusing on quantifying and modelling collective behavior of fish across ecological contexts. This study involved analysing a natural system located in Tabasco, Mexico, consisting of groups of fish, called Poecilia sulphuraria, that are subject to attacks of natural predators such as birds. The individuals show a synchronized collective diving response to the attacks, which is quantified by the surface waves that can propagate along the whole system. The aim of the project was to investigate the mechanisms at the individual level that might be responsible for such a collective behavior, and to study the role of the system’s degree of excitability in an ecological context.