Assunção Cristas took her PhD at Nova School of Law (2005) and her BA at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (1997), where she was trainee assistant professor (1997-99) and monitor (1995-96). Since 2005 is professor at Nova School of Law (since 2008 as associate professor). Assunção Cristas presently teaches Introduction to Law and Legal Norm Theory at the BA and Ocean Policies at the Master´s in Law and Economics of the Sea ¿ Ocean Governance. She co-coordinates the referred masters and is Director of the Nova Ocean Knowledge Centre. Her areas of research interest are focused on sustainability and legislative architecture and development, namely in the ocean field. She regularly organises and participates in academic conferences, and participates in conferences held by civil society, on topics related to the sea, agriculture, and sustainability in general. In this regard, she coordinated the SEDES working group devoted to the Sea, which drafted the report presented at the association¿s 50th anniversary congress held in December 2021, that is currently transformed into a permanent Ocean Observatory. Assunção Cristas is also a member of the World Economic Forum¿s Expert Network on the ocean and sustainability. Assunção Cristas joined VdA in 2022 as Of Counsel to head the firm¿s ESG Integrated Services Platform and Environment practice area, which encompasses the ocean. Assunção Cristas war former Minister responsible for Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning (2011-2013) and Agriculture and Sea (2013-2015), was Member of the Parliament (2009-2011 and 2015-2020), President of the political party CDS-PP (2016-2020), and Councilwoman of the Lisbon City Council (2017-2021). During her term of office as Minister she was directly responsible namely for the institutional reorganisation of several areas of administration, including in the area of the ocean, participated monthly at the Agrifish European Council Formation (2011-2015), and the Envi European Council Formation (2011-2013), participated in the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention (CoP 2011 and 2012), and in the Rio+20 Conference. She was directly responsible for the drafting of structural national legislation, such as the framework law for maritime spatial planning and management. In this field, she led the National Sea Strategy 2013-2020, and was particularly active in the international agenda. She organised the Blue Economy Road Map trough twelve countries, fourteen cities around the globe (2014-2015), and organised and hosted in Lisbon the ¿Blue Week¿ (2015), bringing together 70 members of government and head of multilateral international organisations, that adopted the Lisbon Declaration, the first international declaration on blue economy. Assunção Cristas was head of the Portuguese Legislative Policy and Planning Office of the Ministry of Justice (2002-2005), where she participated in numerous legislative production processes at both the national level and in the context of international cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries. After her PhD, she was exclusively dedicated to academia. In addition to teaching and publishing, she held several organisational positions, namely co-cordinated the SPEED (Permanent Seminar on the State and the Study of Law), directed the UMAC (Consumer Conflicts Mediation Unit), was board member of the CEDIS (Research Centre on Law and Society of Nova School of Law). Following her teaching on Contract Law and Law of Obligations, she coordinated a research project on non-performance of contracts, that included a survey on knowledge and behaviour of contractors, funded by FCT. When preparing her PdD, she hold a grant from FCT, and conducted her research mainly in the Max-Plack Institut für Auständisches und Internationales Privatrecht Hamburg. Assunção Cristas was born in Luanda in 1974, is married and mother of four children.