Leonilde M Moreira is Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon (ULisbon), and Principal Investigator at Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB-IST). She graduated in Biochemistry (1990) at Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra; obtained a MSc in Biotechnology (Biochemical Engineering) at IST (1993); PhD in Biotechnology (specialization in Microbiology) at IST (1997), and obtained the title of Habilitation in Biotechnology and Biosciences (2018) by IST/ULisbon. She was awarded with a Marie Curie fellowship from the European Commission and carried out Postdoctoral studies at the Chair of Genetics (Alfred Pühler laboratory), University of Bielefeld, Germany (1997-1999). Later, took Sabbatical leaves at David P. Speert laboratory, Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (2006), Ananda Chakrabarty laboratory, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA (2007), and Vaughn S. Cooper laboratory, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA (2015). She served in scientific boards, has reviewed for several funding agencies (Portuguese National Science Foundation, Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, European Commission, National Science Foundation, USA, National Institutes of Health, USA, The Wellcome Trust, UK, Medical Research Council, UK, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France, among others) and several reputed journals in fields such as molecular microbiology and genomics. She was the Principal Investigator in 8 competitive national research projects; supervised 9 PhD and over 50 MSc students, and 2 post-doctoral researchers. With a current h-index of 21 (ISI) and a Google Scholar h-index of 25, she has published 48 peer-reviewed articles, and 8 book chapters, among others. She is coordinator of the MSc in Biotechnology at IST and was appointed to the Scientific Committee of three other MSc courses, namely Microbiology, Radiologic Protection and Safety, and Bioengineering and Nanosystems. Since 2007, she has been responsible for the IST courses of “Genetic Engineering” taught to the BSc students of Biological Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, and “Molecular Biotechnology” taught to the MSc students of the Biotechnology and Microbiology MScs. She is co-founder of the Portuguese SME Gene Express (2004). As part of her strong commitment to promoting science across different audiences, she co-organized three workshops for biology teachers and two practical courses on microbiology to secondary school pupils. Between 2020 and 2022, she coordinated the IST-COVID laboratory, which provided PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 detection to all the IST academic community. Her current research interests are focused on bacteria of the Burkholderia cepacia complex, namely: in the identification of genetic determinants implicated in multicellular aggregation in Burkholderia multivorans; comparative genomics to understand the long-term evolution of B. multivorans isolates from cystic fibrosis patients; and in understanding the role of histone-like proteins in horizontally transferred gene silencing and counter-silencing during Burkholderia infection of host cells.