Emma Reyes Ph. D. in Marine Sciences (University of Cádiz, Spain), is the Head of the HF radar Facility at SOCIB. She is a physical oceanographer with over 15 years of experience in operational ocean observing and forecasting systems. Her research interests include coastal ocean dynamics at key circulation chokepoints and the ocean response to atmospheric forcing. During her academic training she has made several pre-doctoral research stays in national and international institutions, including four months in the University of San Carlos from Guatemala, two years of study in the University of Carl von Ossietzky (Oldenburg, Germany), a short stay in MeteoGalicia (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), four months at the NATO Underwater Research Center (NURC, Italy), and three months at the Max Plank INstitute für Meteorologie (Hamburg, Germany). The results of her research activity have been disseminated in an extensive list of scientific articles (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4350-739X), being also most of them presented in the context of several national and international conferences and workshop. In recent years, she has been involved in several projects (CMEMS-SE INCREASE, Jerico NEXT) focused on HF radar data standardization, harmonization of HF radar maintenance best-practices, advanced products development (e.g. HF radar gap-filled data), being also principal investigator of the public-private partnership project IBISAR. She is currently part of the HF radar task team of several European projects (e.g. CMEMS-In Situ TAC phase II, EuroSea, Jerico-S3). In addition, she is member of the EuroGOOS HFR Task Team, being also co-chair of MONGOOS-HFR since 2019. In the framework of the SOCIB’s end-user engagement strategy, it must be highlighted the participation of Emma as a member of the Steering Committee to support the implementation of the agreement between SOCIB and the Spanish Maritime Safety and Rescue Agency, since 2017, and SOCIB and the Spanish Port System, since 2019. In addition, aligned with the SOCIB’s strategy for stimulating the training of new generations of oceanographers and technicians, Emma is also member of the Steering Committee between SOCIB and the University of Cádiz, since 2021. Emma has always been interested in narrowing the gap between science and society, since she has always firmly believed that scientific evidence is critical to solve major societal challenges, but also that it alone is not enough. Her greatest motivation over the years has come from transferring her research’s outcomes to operational tailored products and science-based societal applications providing user-oriented services to different stakeholders, thus contributing to global efforst towards achieving cleaner, healthier and safer oceans.