Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at Iscte-IUL and Visiting Scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (since 2014). Member of the International Science Council (ISC) expert advisory panel on the Public Value of Science. 

I was Marie Curie Fellow at LSE (2016-2018) (with Marie Curie Individual Fellowship) and Fulbright Scholar at Cornell University (New York) (2015-16) (with a Fulbright Scholarship).

I completed my PhD in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at University College London (UCL) (2011), where I was Teaching Assistant (TA) for courses in Science Communication and Science Policy at UCL (2008-2012). I was a trainer at Esconet (European Network for Science Communication, EU funded project), training scientists how to communicate with publics (2009-12). Before my PhD, I worked for the European Commission (EC), at the DG Research, Infrastructures Unit, Brussels.

Research interests: science communication, public understanding of science, science policy and research methods for social sciences. Current research focusses on institutional communication of science with society.

Main awards and recognitions:

• International award from Euroscience: European Young Researcher Award' Laureate (EYRA) (2016)
• Recognition in the Book Ciência Viva 'Mulheres na Ciência' (2019)

Main recent and ongoing international projects:

1. PI (Principal Investigator) for the project ‘MORE-PE: Mobilising Resources for Public Engagement’ (2016-2021). Funding: €170.000, FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia). 

2. PI (Principal Investigator) for the project 'OPEN: Organisational Public Engagement with Science and Technology' (2019-2023). Funding: €250.000, FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia).

The MORE-PE and OPEN studies have been implemented in Portugal, Italy, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, the USA, Turkey, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan and China (mainland) to study science communication within institutional environments. 

3. WP Leader for the EU funded project "POIESIS: Probing the impact of integrity and integration on societal trust in science" with a focus on research integrity and public trust in science in seven countries: Germany, France, Denmark, Greece, Portugal, Spain and the UK (2023 2025). Funding: €1.2M, European Commission (EC). 

Website: https://poiesis-project.eu/

4. Co-PI at Iscte for the study 'Public Opinion about Radan' (part of the EC project RadoNorm) in collaboration with APA (Associação Portuguesa do Ambiente) implemented under the protocol "Implementation of the National Plan for Radan" jointly with the partners: Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr Ricardo Jorge (INSA), Universidade de Coimbra (UC), Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC), Direção-Geral da Saúde (DGS), and Instituto Português de Acreditação (IPAC) (2023 - on). Funding: €150.000, APA Fundo Ambiental (FA).

5. PI of the study "Public attitudes and trust in Blockchain technology for Health" part of the project Blockchain.PT (PRR-RE-C05-i01.02: Agendas/Alianças verdes para a Inovação Empresarial) (2023-2026). Funding: €48M (€1.2M Iscte); PRR - Plano de Recuperação e Resilência e União Europeia ao abrigo do programa NextGenerationEU.

6. PI in Portugal for the project “Copy and Paste in (Digital) Science Communication: Praktiken von Churnalism and Verantwortungszuschreibungen [CoPaDiSC]” led by Dr. Lars Guenther from University of Hamburg. Comparative research on university press releases in four countries: Germany (University of Hamburg), Portugal (Iscte-IUL), South Africa (Stellenbosh University) and Israel (Tecnion-Israel Institute of Technology) (2024-2027). Funding: €597.548; BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research)

Speaker in international events: I have been often invited to speak at international conferences including in China, Japan, Brazil and Europe, and as expert in discussions in the field (e.g. Bellagio Centre/Rockefeller Foundation, Como Lake, Italy (2018 and 2022), Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (2018), San Francisco, USA).

Recent book published by Routledge (2022): 'Public Communication of Research Universities: ‘Arms-race’ for visibility or science substance?’, Routledge