In 2004, I began my studies in Forest Engineering Technology at the Universitat de Lleida (UdL), marking my first contact with research: initially through a university–industry partnership in the field of extensive crops at IRTA-Lleida, and later through a placement at CITA-Aragón, where I investigated decline processes affecting Scots pine stands in the Iberian System of Teruel. In 2007, I continued with an advanced degree in Forest Engineering at UdL, while simultaneously working for 14 months as a forest engineer on a project to improve the timber quality of poplar and walnut trees, developed through a collaboration between UdL and Garnica S.A. In 2009, I undertook a research stay at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (Mexico), and after completing my engineering degree (2010), I worked for four months as an engineer at the Cap de Creus Natural Park, where I contributed mainly to the drafting of technical projects for degraded area restoration, invasive species management, and native flora and fauna conservation.
In 2011, I began my Master's and doctoral studies in Plant Biology and Biotechnology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), funded by a fellowship from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Through a joint agreement between UAB and the University of Aberdeen, which involved quarterly research stays in Scotland, I obtained my PhD in Plant Biology and Biotechnology / Plant Sciences from both institutions in 2015/2016. During my doctoral training, I participated in national and international conferences, attended courses in laboratory techniques and GIS, and my research on natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana from Catalonia resulted in publications in high-impact international journals (Busoms et al. Plant Physiology 2015; PNAS 2018; New Phytologist 2021).
In 2016, I began my postdoctoral career at the John Innes Centre (JIC, Norwich, UK) in the group of Dr. Levi Yant. Alongside my main project on the genomic basis of abiotic stress adaptation in Brassicaceae systems, I contributed to other group projects, and in May 2019 I was awarded a Future Food Beacon Innovation Funds Fellowship at the University of Nottingham (UoN) to work on improving crop resilience to abiotic stress under climate change. In 2020, I returned to the Plant Physiology laboratory at UAB, initially as an associate lecturer and research support technician, and subsequently as a postdoctoral researcher on the IONPLAMIC project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU), and supported by a María Zambrano fellowship. In November 2024, I joined the Universitat de Girona (UdG) as a substitute lecturer, and I currently hold a permanent lectureship position.
My research has been published in articles and reviews in prestigious Q1 journals (e.g. Busoms et al. PNAS 2024, Plant Communications 2023, Plant Cell & Environment 2023; Frontiers in Plant Science 2021) and presented at national and international conferences (e.g. posters at GARNetNatVar16, BBSRC 2016, Cambridge; XXIV Meeting of the Spanish Society of Plant Biology, 2021; The Plant-Microbe Interactions Conference, 2022, Denmark; and oral presentations at the SMBE Annual Meeting 2018, Yokohama; Genome Science 2018, Nottingham; International Symposium on Plant Cell and Developmental Biology 2023, Shanghai). I have also communicated my research beyond the scientific community through popular science articles, media interviews, and science outreach volunteering (Busoms S. 2016 and 2025, UAB Divulga / https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/). I have established university–industry collaborations with Semillas Batlle S.A. and Desarrollos Agroquímicos S.A. for the improvement of Brassicaceae varieties and the development of novel organic bioinoculants for salinity-sensitive species. I have co-led projects such as ENGRESCAT, a consortium contributing to the Earth Biogenome Project initiative through the creation of a reference genome catalogue for vulnerable plant species. I have also participated in the drafting and as a team member of several projects under the MCIU's "Knowledge Generation" programme, most notably IONPLAMIC (PID2019-104000RB-I00, UAB) and REWEEDING (PID2022-142523OB-I00, UdG). In 2026, the project 'Accelerated regeneration of degraded horticultural soils through winter cover crops of weeds and legumes' received DARPA funding under my leadership (PI).
Teaching has been a continuous thread throughout my career since the start of my doctoral studies. During my predoctoral stage, I prepared digital teaching materials, supported Plant Physiology (PP) laboratory sessions, supervised undergraduate students, and taught in higher vocational training programmes. Subsequently, I have delivered over 30 credits of lectures, laboratory practicals, and seminars in PP, Applied PP, Environmental PP, agrogenomics, plant nutrition and metabolism, and organismal biology across various undergraduate and Master's programmes in Sciences and Biosciences, taught in both Catalan and English, at UAB and UdG. I have also supervised 5 undergraduate final projects — one of which received the 2023 Arcadi Oliveres Award for Global Justice —, 7 Master's theses, 3 external placement students, 1 Erasmus+ doctoral stay, and one doctoral thesis. Notably, in 2019 I was part of the organising team of the AfriPlantSci Summer School at Pwani University (Kenya), where I delivered training in soil physicochemical analysis and open-source bioinformatics tools. In late 2023, I joined the 111-Program of Chinese Universities, participating as an instructor in bioinformatics workshops and as a speaker at symposia organised by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Nanjing Agricultural University. I have also completed courses in teaching innovation, active learning methodologies, and gender equality, among others; I serve as an examiner and marker for the Biology section of the Spanish University Entrance Examinations (PAU/MG25/45), and I give university orientation talks at secondary schools.