I came across parasitic copepods for the first time by a lucky coincidence, after I had to change the original topic of my bachelor's thesis. At first, I had little knowledge of these taxa, but I was intrigued by the fact that basically no one else at my university was working on this topic. I started my bachelor's thesis on parasitic crustaceans of African freshwater fishes, which introduced me to the morphology of this group and to molecular analyses. I worked with material from Sudan for the practical part and gathered knowledge about all parasitic crustaceans from Africa for the literature research. During this time, I also realized that Masaryk University had a lot of material from expeditions in 2006 that had never really been processed. Therefore, it was an easy decision for me to continue my master's degree with a similar topic. I worked on material from Lake Tanganyika, which represents one of the most challenging freshwater ecosystems for evolutionary biologists and I discovered three new species of the genus Ergasilus and two other, previously described, species from the lake. I was extremely interested in publishing my results in a scientific journal, which led me to pursue my Ph.D. degree.

The topic of my Ph.D. is the diversity and phylogeny of parasitic copepods from the Old World, and my aims are to update the knowledge about this group of parasites and to try to clarify the phylogenetic relationships, mainly for the families Ergasilidae and Lernaeidae. These efforts have already been successful, and I was able to publish my first manuscript, including the very first molecular data for African ergasilids. I have also had the opportunity to participate in several new expeditions of Masaryk University in recent years, including three trips to Turkey and one to Iraq. I also participated in another expedition to Turkey with the Czech Academy of Sciences and co-authored a manuscript on parasites of the invasive species Lepomis gibbosus. Following this, I focused on Madagascar and described a new species of Dermoergasilus, which included the first molecular data for the genus. In November 2023, I had the opportunity to undertake a research visit at the Natural History Museum, London under the supervision of Prof. Geoffrey Boxshall. This experience was very valuable, and I was able to discuss many aspects of my research with a renowned copepodologist for the first time. I am currently working on material from the Mediterranean and the Middle East, after which I would like to return to parasitic copepods from Africa, where we have obtained new molecular data for several genera.

It was Prof. Boxshall who gave me the idea to participate in the 15th International Conference on Copepoda in Hiroshima. Previously, I had only attended several local conferences in the Czech Republic, and I felt that this could be a wonderful opportunity not only to present my results, but also to meet other experts in the field. At the conference I presented the results from my Ph.D. so far, including descriptions of new species from Lake Tanganyika and Madagascar, discussed phylogenetic relationships, but I also tried to cover the general state of knowledge about parasitic copepods of the families Ergasilidae and Lernaeidae worldwide and to point out key problems that need to be solved in the near future. I was quite shocked to be awarded the Zbigniew Kabata Award, as all the other students' presentations were of such a high standard. At the same time, I feel very honoured to receive such recognition, and I am incredibly happy that parasitic copepods caught the interest of the committee. Winning this award motivates me to continue my research, which will hopefully yield more interesting results and expand our knowledge of this group of parasites. Once again, I would like to thank the organizers of the conference and the committee for giving me this opportunity and experience, which I greatly appreciate.