Maria José Sousa holds a PhD in Industrial Management and a Habilitation in Management and Public Management. She is Associate Professor and Researcher at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, having served as Pro-Rector (2022–2024), member of the scientific committee of the PhD in Law and Economics (Cycle XXXIX) at the University of Molise, and member of the Advisory Board of Banco Português de Fomento in Public Policies (2024–2026).

Her leadership experience includes Senior Researcher at the Office of Strategy and Studies (GEE) of the Portuguese Ministry of Economy, responsible for Innovation, Research and Entrepreneurship Policies; Knowledge and Skills Manager at AMA, I.P.; Project Manager at the Ministry of Labour and Employment; and member of the Coordinating Committee of the PhD in Management at Universidade Europeia. She also held a postdoctoral position (2016–2018) focused on digital education and contributed as an expert to a European Commission project on digital skills for the European Innovation Scoreboard.

Her research interests include organisational innovation, digital transformation, and AI in Human Resources Management and Development. She has co-authored more than 180 scientific articles and book chapters published in journals including Journal of Business Research, Journal of Grid Computing, Future Generation Computer Systems, European Planning Studies, Information Systems Frontiers, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, and Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory. She has guest-edited more than 10 special issues for Elsevier and Springer.

She served as Chair of ISO/TC 260 – Human Resource Management, representing Portugal at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). She coordinates and participates in European innovation projects funded by Erasmus+, Horizon Europe, and ICMPD, and serves as an external expert for the COST Association and the European Innovation Council (EIC) in research and innovation.