Ana Luísa Brandão completed her graduation in Chemistry on 2019 (13/20) and her master’s degree in Forensic Chemistry on 2021 (16/20). Currently, she is enrolled in the PhD program in Biosciences having concluded the curricular year with 17 out of 20, including the Thesis Project called “Liver Graft Rejection Diagnosis by Vibrational Spectroscopy”. During her graduation, Ana Brandão engaged in a one-month summer internship at the Oncology Institute Francisco Gentil of Coimbra, which allowed her to acquire practical experience, knowledge and specific skills on cancer incidence and treatment strategies and their impact on human health. This hands-on experience in a real-world setting further enriched her understanding on the practical application of her academic knowledge and the importance of studies with human tissue for development of new diagnostic methodologies. Ana Brandão developed her first work with biological human tissue in her master’s degree thesis “Discrimination Between Recent and Archaeological Human Bones by Infrared Spectroscopy upon Treatment with Acetic Acid” obtaining an excellent classification (18/20). This great project allowed for the publication of an original scientific paper in Forensic Science International Journal (first author). Ana Brandão has actively participated in groundbreaking research initiatives, securing two grants within two R&D projects: ReNature – Valorisation of the Nature Endogenous Resources of the Centro Region (Centro-01-0145-FEDER-000007) and VIBSonCANCER (CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-029956), between September 2021 and July 2022. These projects underscore her commitment to contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge. In VIBSonCANCER grant, Ana continues to work with biological samples, but for the first time in the diagnostic area by recording and analysing spectra through statistical and multivariate analysis, allowing for the identification of specific spectral biomarkers associated with the neoplastic progression in the cervix. Ana’s active engagement in the scientific community is clear through her participation in six events, where she presented her research through three posters and four oral presentations. She was the first author of one poster presented at the VII Scientific Meeting of Chemical Department of UC (November 2021) and one oral presentation called “FTIR Studies of Human Skeletal Remains from the Roman City of Augusta Emerita (Merida, Spain)” (April 2023). Moreover, Ana was a researcher in two scientific expeditions at ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Annual Report denominated “Characterisation of Metastatic Bone Lesions by Neutron Spectroscopy at MAPS” and “Characterization of Metastatic Bone Lesions by Neutron Spectroscopy. Ana Brandão has been tutoring twelve students in their scientific projects, summer internships, master’s projects, and laboratory classes. Since 2022, Ana has maintained contact with science as a technical assistant at the University of Coimbra. She collaborates in different research, including the acquisition and analysis of FTIR and Raman spectra from various samples. In this job she developed skills in handling/sampling biological and plastics samples, and vibrational spectroscopy/microspectroscopy (Raman and FTIR, including FTIR-ATR), as well as in spectral pre-processing and statistical analysis of experimental data. In the last year, she also attended several courses about MATLAB. All these skills are particularly important for a successful PhD, given the project Ana Brandão is applying to.