I am a molecular microbiologist, specialized in S. aureus cell and molecular biology, cell wall biosynthesis and the mechanisms underpinning antimicrobial resistance (PhD in Molecular Biology, FCT-NOVA /2019). My main research interests are in bacterial pathogenesis and molecular bacteriology namely: intracellular persistence, antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, stringent response, genetic competence and mechanobiology using advanced microscopy approaches such as Super resolution Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM). Currently, I am a researcher at the Intracellular Microbial Infection Biology (IMIB) Laboratory (P.I.: Pedro M. Pereira), hosted at Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica (ITQB-NOVA). I have performed postdocs at the Molecular Microbiology of Bacterial Pathogens Lab (P.I.: R. Sobral), at Laboratory of Molecular Genetics (P.I.: H. de Lencastre) and at Microbial Stress Lab (P.I.: S. Pauleta). During these postdocs I was responsible for the introduction on new research lines in the host labs such as the production of bacterial cellulose for wound dressing applications and the development of copper and silver NHC conjugated compounds as antimicrobials against several pathogens. I have authored 10 peer-reviewed journal articles, 7 conference proceedings, 1 pre-print and 2 book chapters, among which 15 as first-author with a total of 704 citations (Google scholar). I have participated in 13 Research Grants both from national and international funding agencies, two as a Principal Investigator. My work was presented more than 40 communications selected from abstracts (oral and panel) in national and international conferences and in seminars by invitation. I have extensive experience in supervision of undergraduate and graduate students with a total of 18 supervisions and co-supervisions of national and international students from bachelor degrees, master degrees, Erasmus program and PhD and MSc laboratory rotations. I was invited to be assistant in the module "Introduction to Microbiology, Microbial Genetics and Recombinant DNA Technology in Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes" of the Medical Microbiology Master and I was teaching practical classes of the disciplines "Biochemistry of Foods" and "Chemistry and Biochemistry of Foods" at FCT-NOVA, offered to several BSc and MSc courses. I am an ad-hoc reviewer for PeerJ and PLOS ONE, and I have participated in 15 jury committees as main opponent in MSc, post-graduations, and BSc examinations. I was also an evaluator of two international grants (Latvia, Australia). I have always been involved in dissemination activities such as the ITQB-open day, Expo-FCT, European Researcher's night and the Feira Internacional de Ciência (FIC.A). I was also member of the Task Force for COVID-19, performing RT-PCR testing during the covid pandemics. In 2022 I was awarded with a Research Grant, as PI, from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) - Research Grant 2022, to study the role of a new bacteriocin system in S. aureus. In 2023, I won the competitive Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus (CEEC) from FCT/MCTES with the project "PERSISTAUREUS - Unravelling the mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus antibiotic induced persistence during intracellular host-cell infection". Recently, in 2025 I was awarded with a Research Grant, as a PI, from the MPS_NOVA TWINNING (European Commission) with the project: «Modelling Bacteria Pneumonia Infection Dynamics in Lung-on-Chip: A Comparative Study of Legionella pneumophila and Staphylococcus aureus”.