Academically, she has a B.Sc. in Pharmacy (Clinical Analysis and Pharmacy options) from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (1991), she frequented the curricular part of the Food Science and Engineering Masters from the Portuguese Catholic University (1993) and finished her PhD in Biotechnology (in the field of Food Science and Engineering) from the Portuguese Catholic University in 1999. Among other relevant activities, some are highlighted: Coordinator of the partnership and Project Amyris-UCP (since 2016), Member of IBET advisory Member (since 2016), Member of Strategic Group for AgroFood, Forest and Biodiversity and Member of Strategic Group for Circular Economy nominated by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Vice-President of the Scientific Council for Natural and Environmental Sciences (CCCNA) of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), one of the four Scientific Councils established by FCT (2013-2016), Coordinator of the Evaluation Committee of Final Reports of FCT projects for Biological Engineering and Biotechnology area (since 2013), Vice-President of European Chitin Society (since 2013-2017), Chair for SIG (Special Interest Group) – Bioactive Compounds of ISEKI Food Association (since 2014), member of several National and International Evaluation Committee for post-graduate studies and research projects. She has established strong interaction with industry and she has been Coordinator of the Department of Scientific Services for Industry (SETIF) (2013-2016). Additionally, she has been an invited professor at Paraíba Federal University (from 2012 to 2016). . The research can be summarized into (i) development, compositional characterization and validation of bioactivity of functional and bioactive ingredients (proteins and biopeptides, antioxidants, probiotics, prebiotics and antimicrobials) and study applications on the development of novel functional foods and other added-value applications (ii) by-product and new resources valorization through bioprocesses and extraction processes aiming to obtain molecules/extracts fully characterized in terms of composition, bioactivities, functionalities and safety to be explored as high-added-value bioproducts in different high-value fields (iii) application of the above research developments to other Biotechnological fields. . During her scientific trajectory, she published several papers (currently more than 400 papers) in refereed international journals and authored 45 chapters in handbooks on these topics, and creator of 20 patents. She has an h-index of 45 with more than 8500 citations (March 2020). She has participated in several professional meetings and international symposia and congresses presenting ca. 160 invited oral communications and over 150 selected oral communications and about 400 posters in National and International conferences. . She supervises(ed) or co-supervises(ed) 41 MSc, 40 PhD thesis and 25 Post-doc scholarships as well as 20 international training scholarships, 6 national training scholarships and 60 research grants. She has been a part of 25 PhD evaluation panels and over 30 M.Sc. evaluation panels. Additionally, she has been responsible for the coordination and co-coordination of 85 externally funded (through national and international funds) research and development projects and has been involved in collaborations with multiple Universities and Research Centers, companies and Associations/technology clusters. Given her overall curricular merit, she has been recognized by the Ciência Viva program as one of the female faces of the Portuguese science community in its book dedicated to Portuguese scientist women.