Inês Lourinho has received her PhD degree in Medieval History from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon in 2018, with the dissertation 'Gharb al-Andalus: confrontation ground between Almoravids and Christians (1093 - 1147)', after a decade of research on the interconnections between Christians and Muslims, the political contexts, and the dynamics of the frontier warfare that enabled the foundation of the Kingdom of Portugal. Defended in 2010, her masters dissertation ('1147: a conjuncture analysed from the Muslim sources' perspective') focused on the three-year period which predated the Christian conquest of Lisbon. One of the most scrutinised events of Portuguese historiography, this conquest was then studied from a Muslim perspective and as a correlate of the events that led to the fall of the Almoravid Empire in 1147. Also undertaken at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, this investigation would be the core of the work that she has developed during her PhD period. In her line of work, Inês Lourinho always compares Christian and Muslim written sources with the purpose of achieving a balanced point of view between opposing sides, a methodology which is strongly influenced by her initial studies in Communication Theory - she received her licence degree in Communication Sciences from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the New University of Lisbon in 1998, becoming a professional journalist. Currently, she is undertaking a post-doctoral investigation with title 'A look over the Sahel from the perspective of Medieval History: foundation of political units in the Sub-Saharan region of the ancient Almoravid Empire'. This new research resorts to key-concepts in Medieval History to analyse the contemporary contexts of the Western Sahel, namely the insurgency in the Sahara Desert, the political narratives issued by armed groups to legitimise themselves, and the routes of trafficking that link the Sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean. She is a historian, and also a journalist.