With a BSc in Environmental Engineering (2002, pre bologna system) and a PhD in Marine, Earth and Environmental Sciences (2011), I am a physical oceanographer specialized on collecting, processing of coastal oceanographic data. My PhD thesis was focused on measuring hydrodynamics and sediment transport at tidal inlets. Today, although continuing to research on coastal dynamics, particularly on developing satellite bathymetric methods, my current research topics are more focused on marine renewable energies and sustainable island’ communities, as response to adaptation and mitigation planning to climate change. Since 2019, I am coordinating the Culatra 2030 – Sustainable Energy Community, one of the six-pilot initiatives for island transition supported by the European Commission. The initiative is conceived as a living lab for sustainability, through which the island will become the first Portuguese community that is fully sustainable (e.g. energy production/distribution through a decentralized market, water production and storage, waste valorisation through new circular economy models and net-zero transportation). Replicability to other islands of the EU is strongly embedded in the initiative through Culatra’ membership of the EU pilot project 'Clean Energy for EU Islands', and to the World through the sustainable label given by the “SMILO – Sustainable Islands” on 2022. My career objectives are to consolidate CIMA/UAlg research on ocean sciences and engineering, supporting the growth of blue economy, in line with the EU and PT targets on renewable energy decarbonisation roadmap. I also have an increase interest on digital twins as a tool for an adaptive planning to a changing environment. I am currently working on raising funds to build up a small-scale model of Culatra, and understand which adaptive solutions can be implemented, e.g. nature-based solutions, and how can we use this knowledge to other increase resilience on other coastal communities. I founded 6 years ago a research multidisciplinary team on marine renewable energy (MORE) at CIMA. The aim was to create a strong research multidisciplinary group on marine renewable energy, promoting advanced training (MSc /PhD transnational programmes) on the future implementation of marine energy projects, strengthening the renewable energy market and restore the competitiveness of coastal areas. More than 30 researchers collaborated within MORE’ different projects. I also created and co-organize the Coast Tools Summer School, a week event which the aim is to provide young scientists, focussing on marine sciences and coastal processes, with the principles and techniques that will allow them to explore the dynamics of complex coastal systems. Up until now more than 60 researchers participated on the two editions of the Coast Tools Summer Schools. The positive impact of my research is demonstrated by (1) the collaborative projects with industry and top ranked EU institutions (indicators: 8 project approvals, 5 new project submissions, 3 projects under collaboration with developers. Total number of partners including academia/industry partners >30 ); (2) the capacity to attract funding on highly competitive National and European calls (indicators: 1.2k€ / last 5 years) and the acquire experience on managing projects; (3) the strong communication of different project outcomes through the main media channels, sea exhibitions and international conferences (indicators: 8 TV appearances, 9 radio interviews, 25 newspaper’ news, 5 specialized magazine’ news, 8 sea exhibitions, 3 documentaries, 35 presentations on international conferences) and (4) the scientific publications on top ranking science citation indexed journals, mainly as first author (indicators: 39 papers total in peer review journals).