Maria dos Anjos Clemente Pires graduated in Veterinary Medicine from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Lisbon in 1988. She then did a Master's in Immunology at the University of Porto in 1993 and a PhD in Veterinary Sciences at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD) in 1998. She also completed a special training programme in Veterinary Sciences/Histopathology at UTAD in 2006. She started working at UTAD in 1998 and has been an associate professor with Habilitation since 2006. She has been a member of CECAV since 2003 and was previously on ICETA-UTAD. Since 2021, she has also been a member of Al4AnimalS Associated Laboratory. She began her research with the publication, in 1990, of the first report on rabbit hemorrhagic disease in Portugal. In her Master's thesis, she investigated the "Relationship between T lymphocytes and macrophages in the Mycobacterium bovis infection." On PhD, she studied the kinetics of inflammation. She then began researching oncology and immunopathology after starting work as a veterinary pathologist. Currently, her main areas of expertise are the study of the oral lesions and of the genital systems of dogs and cats, and prion diseases of various species. She led two FCT projects (worth nearly €500,000), one of which was scientific re-equipment. She was coordinator for the line 1 of the project "One Heath for animal Cancer". She was also part of another scientific team for 12 other projects. She is currently taking part in the InsectERA mobilisation agenda (PRR, as President of the SPCV). She has a European and EUA patent in progress on PlatGen, a product for regenerating skin wounds in dogs and cats. It has won 16 awards, 5 of which are for innovation. She has written three books, 23 book chapters and more than 110 articles (90 of which are in ISI/Scopus). She has also taken part in many national and international scientific meetings, resulting in more than 350 published reports. Was invited speaker of several oral communication. She was a supervisor for post-doctoral and doctoral fellows and research integration grants. She is recognised in the national scientific community, highlighting the Coordination of the evaluation team for doctoral scholarships in the area of Animal and Veterinary Science at FCT in 2023 and 2024, and belonged to other 3 panels in different years. Evaluator of FCT and QREN projects. She is also a member of the INIAV Panel of Assessors and belongs to juries for documentary applications, PhDs and Master’s degrees from national and international institutions. She became president of the Portuguese Society of Veterinary Sciences in 2020 and 2025. She was the first woman to be elected as president in the society's 120-year history. She has held and continues to hold various management positions at UTAD, from directing the Pathological Anatomy Laboratory, the Department of Veterinary Sciences, the General Council, the Scientific Council, the Pedagogical Council and the Management of various courses.