Andres Legarra is Research Director at the INRA center of Toulouse, France, in the Animal Genetics department. He works on genetic improvement of livestock with strong emphasis in genetic evaluation with phenotypes, pedigree and markers, and he enjoys making incursions in pure Quantitative Genetics. Speaking fluently three languages, he believes in the great value of international collaborations. He also believes that key ingredients to science are rigor, enthusiasm, fun and usefulness.