João Ferreira Dias holds a PhD in African Studies from ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (2016) and a master’s degree in History and Culture of Religions from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon (2011), both in the field of Anthropology of Religion. He has several specialisation courses, among which we highlight the course on Afro-Latin American Studies at Harvard University (2021), the course on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Perspective (2020) from the Faculty of Law of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and the course on Brazil’s International Insertion and Foreign Policy (2008) from the University of Lisbon.

He is a researcher at the Center for International Studies at ISCTE (CEI-ISCTE), in the Democracy, Activism and Citizenship research group. He is also an Associate Researcher at the Centre for History of the University of Lisbon and a member of the research network of the European Center for Populism Studies. 

He is a regular columnist for leading newspapers in the Portuguese press.