TSS graduated in Chemistry in FCT-NOVA and obtained a PhD in Structural Biology at the NOVA University in 2006. As a Postdoctoral fellow, she specialized in protein crystallography and solved the structure of molybdenum-containing enzymes, at the Macromolecular Crystallography lab. She pursues this interest, studying Mo-enzymes with an impact on health and on environment. In 2008, with a researcher position, she started to focus on protein-ligand interactions for biomedical purposes, using X-ray crystallography, Small X-ray Scattering, and other biophysical techniques. She contributed to unraveling the interaction of vanadium complexes with biological molecules, and her work was a landmark for the determination of the binding mode of carbon monoxide releasing molecules to serum proteins (JACS 2011, over 117 cited). More recently TSS also became interested in proteins involved in biofilm formation and peptidoglycan biosynthesis and started collaborations with national and international chemists for the development of new inhibitors with antibacterial effects. In 2018 she was appointed Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at FCT-NOVA. Currently TSS is focusing on Mo-enzymes involved in arsenic biosensing and bioremediation.