Sara Carvalho is a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication and Arts of Aveiro University, Portugal, where she currently holds the positions of director of the Doctoral Music course, Vice-director of the Music Undergraduate course, and coordinates the Composition course. She is Member of the Board of the Doutoral School at Aveiro University. She teaches mostly post-graduate courses and Composition, and has supervised 2 post-doctoral projects, 9 PhD theses (8 ongoing doctoral students), and 36 Master of Music and Master of Music Education dissertations. Sara is a fellow researcher of INET-md [Instituto de Etnomusicologia - Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança], and her research interests centre on the fields of Composition and Music Education. As a composer Sara is interested in the interaction of different Performing Arts, as an extension and transformation of musical thinking, and aspects associated with gesture, musical narrative, audience as performers, and performer-composer collaboration. Her folio has over 80 pieces that are played regularly both in Portugal and around the World, including commissions by prestigious international institutions and ensembles and soloists of international merit, such as Antonietta Loffredo, Black Hair, Borealis Ensemble, Borislava Taneva, Capricorn Ensemble, Composers Ensemble, Duque Quartet, Ensemble DME, Ensemble Lontano, Ensemble Móbile, Ensemble Neue Musik Bratislava, Ensemble Vertixe Sonora, Erato Alakiozidou, FLUTUA, Guenadie Rotari, Henrique Portovedo, João Roiz Ensemble, Késia Decoté, Mieko Kanno, Medea String Quartet, Northen Symphonia, Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa, Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, OrquestrUtopica, Peter Kolkay, Performa, Ensemble, Remix Ensemble, Síntese, Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble, Stacey Barelos, University of York Chamber Orchestra, Verge Ensemble e Young Ha. Several of her pieces are available on CD, and in 2012 her first monographic CD "7 Pomegranate seeds" was published. Many of her scores are published by the Portuguese Music Information & Investigation Centre and Babel Scores. In the field of Music Education, Sara researches the influence of creative processes on the development of musical thinking in children. Her research themes include: creativity in education, optimization of teaching-learning in the classroom, the influence of musical projects in schools and communities, and emotion and flow in a musical context. Between 2005 and 2017 she was regularly invited to sit on the panel of experts of the European Commission to evaluate projects for "Culture" and "Creative Europe" programmes. She has organized and been invited as a panel member of many scientific comities of both conferences and journals, among others, co-organized: 2011 and 2015 - "Performa - Conference on Performance Studies"; 2016, 2017 and 2019 - "Orff-Schulwerk Meeting of the University of Aveiro"; 2016, 2019 and next July 2023 - "National Meeting of Composition and Musical Analysis: Educational Perspectives"; 2017 and 2022 - "1st and 2nd International Conference Music for and by Children: Perspectives from Children, Composers, Performers and Educators" (musichildren'17 / musichildren'22). She has been invited as a jury for several competitions, including the "International Competition: Arioso Musica Domani: International Competition Prize 2010 and 2012", the "9th and 13th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim" (2016 and 2020), the "Prémio de Composição SPA/Antena 2" in 2021, and "MPMP Musa prize" in 2022. Her research work is published in different journals and book chapters, such as ASHGATE/SEMPRE Studies in The Psychology of Music Series and London: Imperial College Press. She is one of the artistic directors of Performer Ensemble (Portugal). The Ensemble primarily focuses its activity in the areas of composition and performance, through the commissioning, premiere, dissemination and recording of works, mainly of Portuguese composers.