Rosana Alves is a Junior Researcher (2021.03088.CEECIND - national top-3 in Biological Sciences) at the Centre of Molecular and Environmental Biology (CBMA; Braga, Portugal) and a Visiting Researcher at KU Leuven (Flanders, Belgium). She is the first Portuguese researcher with the FEMS-Jensen Award, given once every two years, intended to recognize early-career scientists in Europe demonstrating academic achievement, superior research accomplishments and significant potential to develop an outstanding research career. Rosana completed her PhD degree in Molecular Cell Biology, in 2020, at the University of Minho (Braga, Portugal) in collaboration with KU Leuven. Her Research interests are focused on fungal pathogens and genetic programs governing host-microbe interactions, including murine models of gastrointestinal colonization. Over the past years, she has gathered experience and know-how in the fields of genetics, molecular cell biology, biochemistry, microbiology and immunology. She has extensive international experience at top-notch institutions, namely as an Erasmus student at the University of Liverpool (England, UK), a Visiting Researcher at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK), a Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley (CA, USA), a Visiting PhD student at KU Leuven (Flanders, Belgium), a Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Exeter (England, UK) and more recently as a Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher at KU Leuven. She has published 8 journal articles in top Q1 journals (5 Original Research Papers and 3 Reviews) and presented her work as author (or co-author) at many national and international conferences ( 16 Oral and 24 Poster presentations). She has been awarded 2 International Grants, 6 fellowships, 7 travel grants and 2 prizes for best oral and poster presentations at scientific conferences. She has also been involved in the supervision (or co-supervision) of several BSc, MSc and PhD students. She has been part of the organization committee of 7 scientific meetings, the jury member of 5 Thesis (including 1 international PhD thesis) and the reviewer of 9 international journals and 1 grant proposal. Since she joined the Portuguese Scientific System in 2014, she has always been a member of an ongoing FCT project. Rosana has also experience in teaching as an Invited Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology (University of Minho, from 2019 till 2021), being responsible for teaching many undergraduate and postgraduate courses. In addition to her teaching, supervision and research duties, she has been actively engaged in several outreach activities. These include invited presentations at both national and international scientific events and the organization of several workshops at different Science Festivals, University Open Days and European Researchers' Nights.