Ana Rita Álvaro (ARA) completed her PhD degree in 2008 in Cellular and Molecular Biology where she gained expertise in neurophysiology and neuromodulation of neuronal cells. After the PhD, her career path is characterized by two distinct stages. First, as an invited assistant professor at University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), Vila Real, Portugal, where she was responsible for teaching several subjects of the BsC and MSc degrees, including Cell Biology and Cellular Genetics. During 4 years, ARA had the opportunity to develop communication, educational and leadership skills and, at the same time, she was also integrated within UTAD’s scientific projects, being the supervisor of 3 MSc thesis and 9 BSc projects, and published her first independent paper. Second, after 2014, ARA has been mainly devoted to scientific research activities, and joined CNC-UC as a post-doc. During this period, she implemented an innovative research line, matching fundamental and applied research through a project, whose aim was to evaluate the biological clock disruption in Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) patients and, consequently, identify possible new biomarkers that may anticipate OSA diagnosis. At the same time, ARA was responsible for the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells in a project that brought together 6 international partners within an European Consortium (JPND). Currently, ARA is also involved to decipher the mechanisms underlying insomnia with the goal to develop a new cellular model to investigate the role of neural cells in sleep disorders. ARA is currently a hired researcher at CNC-UC, co-author of 30 articles in peer-reviewed international journals which gives her a h-index of 18 and 726 citations (9 papers Impact Factor> 9,5; 81 % in Q1). As a result of this scientific production, she raised competitive national and international research funding (~350K€) where ARA is the PI. Additionally, ARA’s work has been recognized with 19 awards, of which, 5 were from Portuguese Pneumology Society in a total 30 k€, which reveals the impact of her work in the context of the medical community. Moreover, ARA has international collaborations already established with specialists in the sleep and circadian rhythm field (Angela Relógio, David Smith, Amita Sehgal). As scientific supervisor or co-supervisor ARA has mentored 37 students, 7 in PhD, 11 in MSc and 19 in BsC. At the moment, ARA is the scientific supervisor of 2 PhD students. ARA actively participates in outreach activities, such as in Brain Awareness Week (74 activities) and in the organization of awareness activities of the International Sleep Day (since 2018), in collaboration with the Sleep Portuguese Association. In 2015 & 2017, she had the opportunity to participate in a Startup programme (www.ineostart.pt) where she learnt entrepreneurship competences. From this programme, she co-founded the startup project SleepApnea ID. In 2011-2012 and 2020, ARA had a career break due to high risk pregnancies, and then a maternity leave, which had impacted her scientific productivity during that time. Collaborations: - Cláudia Cavadas, Neuroendocrinology and Aging Group, CNC-UC; Coimbra, Portugal - Luís Pereira de Almeida, Vectors and Gene Therapy, CNC-UC; Coimbra, Portugal - Joaquim Moita, Sleep Unit from Coimbra Hospital, CHUC; Coimbra, Portugal - Angela Relógio, Charité Medical University of Berlin, Germany - David Smith, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, USA - Amita Sehgal, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA - Joaquin Castilla, Prion Research Lab at CIC bioGUNE, Basque Country, Spain.