Sofia Moreira Fernandes is a graduate of Consumer Chemistry at the Department of Applied and Physical Chemistry, Brno University of Technology. She stayed one year at the Technical University of Lisbon as an Erasmus+ student. In her master's thesis, awarded as the best thesis of 2020 at her department, she proposed and developed a novel technique of incorporating bacterial cells into alginate hydrogels for agricultural application. During her studies, Sofia interned in four companies in three countries gaining experience from different fields of chemistry and polymer science. Her main scientific interests are colloidal chemistry, nanomaterials, and polymers. At the moment, she is a research fellow at the Centre for Natural Resources and the Environment - Technical University of Lisbon (CERENA – IST), working on a novel solar photocatalytic wastewater purification system (SOLAR2CLEAN project), aiming to achieve good Vis-light responsiveness, efficient separation of photo-generated charge carriers, outstanding reuse performance and stability. She has authored one publication and co-authored 6 papers. Sofia actively contributes to international conferences, showing her commitment to innovative research and engineering excellence. Sofia has also shown her entrepreneurial interests by attending a 12-week program with a Portuguese VC, Faber, and earning recognition as one of the McKinsey & Company's Next Generation Women Leaders in 2023.