Ana Teresa Afonso holds a Master's degree in Public Health (Global Health) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) (2021) and a Bachelor's degree in Nursing from ESEL - Polo CG in Lisbon (2008). During her undergraduate studies, she took part in the Erasmus programme at Malmö Högskola in Sweden.

She is an Invited Auxiliar professor at the Department of Sociology, School of Sociology and Public Policy at ISCTE-IUL and teaches the curricular unit of Public Health in Humanitarian Action for the the Master of Humanitarian Action and ErasmusMundus at ISCTE-IUL.

She has a vast curriculum and field experience in several humanitarian contexts (conflict and disaster settings) from clinical/technical roles to management and leadership for medium and large-scale emergency responses, with strong links to international organizations and humanitarian community:

• Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
• IOM
• UK-MED (World Health Organization EMT Initiative) - currently acts as Senior Health Consultant/Advisor in Humanitarian Health for the design/strategy and lead of integrated public health programs and health responses for health emergencies. Teresa led recent responses including cholera outbreaks in Malawi (also Cyclone aftermath) and Zambia and the Marburg virus outbreak in Rwanda, among others.

Teresa has developed operational and field experience, project  management and negotiation skills with local governments, donor agencies, UN partners and reporting processes in the Middle East - Saudi Arabia, Africa (South Sudan, Guinea Bissau, Malawi), Bangladesh, Laos, Venezuela, Ukraine. 

She participates in training and capacity-building projects for professionals in the humanitarian field and collaborates with international academic partners and institutions such as the University of Glasgow – “Migrant and Refugee Health in Humanitarian Emergencies”; the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd); the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where she worked with the Humanitarian Health Crisis Center (HHCC); and the UK-HSA (Health Security Agency).

Teresa is an experienced facilitator/trainer in Public Health, supporting trainings for:

• UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST)- Deployment course;
• READY Initiative (USAID) (f2f and online training programme aiming at strengthening local NGOs capacity to respond to infectious disease outbreaks)
• International Organization for Migration (IOM) - Afghanistan;
• Johanniter International -South Sudan or SAMS- Turkey. 
• iNGO UK-Med: She developed an organizational-level training package to enhance Outbreak preparedness and response competencies with workshops/webinars and large-scale simulation exercises (SIMEX), in a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach. 

Her current research interests focus on access to and barriers to healthcare for migrant populations; assessment and improvement of public health systems and services in fragile contexts; communication and public health policies; health information systems; multisectoral coordination of emergency responses; and the training and professionalization of workers in the humanitarian sector.