Simón has a M.Sc. in Marine Science from Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano (Colombia) and a B.Sc. in Marine Biology from the same university. In Colombia, he worked mainly with marine benthic communities from shallow to deep waters and developing ecotoxicology toxicity tests for assessing offshore drilling muds with different marine invertebrate species from the Caribbean. His main research interests are ecotoxicology tests with marine species for assessing substances which could be potentially discharged in the marine environment, marine benthic ecology and polychaeta taxonomy. He has been responsible in different projects for the execution of the budget, planning of field trips, laboratory testing and technical reports. He is currently a PhD student at NIVA and the University of Oslo (UiO). He is involved in the project “Antifoulants, veterinary medicinal products and organic material can affect marine sediment organisms, but to what extent? – ANTIVENOM”. He studies the effects of antifoulants, veterinary medicinal products (VMPs), and organic matter (OM) (individually and in combination) using a suite of relevant species through sediment exposure. The research project analyses whether the use of chemicals in aquaculture are having a significantly greater impact on the environment than previously considered, and if existing guidance on the assessment of their environmental risks is sufficient to cover specifically acting chemicals or the combined effects of different chemicals. As part of his PhD, he is collaborating with some of the most relevant national and international partners in the field, all partners with a background in aquaculture and environmental hazard and risk assessment. The partners have direct expertise in chemical fate and effect assessment (NIVA, ApN, Deltares, Wageningen Environmental Research, WEnR), modelling (Deltares, ApN), hazard and ERA (NIVA, WEnR) and monitoring (ApN, Åkerblå).