M.S. (2003) and a PhD (2008) in Social Psychology of Health (Iscte). Associate Professor with Habilitation (Agregação) in Psychology  at the Department of Psychology of Iscte, where she started teaching in 1999. She is currently the Head of the Psychology Department. She was vice-dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanitie, vice-director of the Centre for Social Research and Intervention, the director of the Master in Social Psychology of Health and Head of the Research Group Health for All (H4A).

Fascinated by the (social) mind-body relations, she has dedicated much attention to such issues in her teaching and research. Her main research interests have generally revolved around social disparities in health and the role of psychosocial influences on chronic illness adaptation processes. She has mainly explored these issues in relation to a particular health-related topic – (chronic) pain.

More specifically, her current main lines of research aim to:
(1) understand the psychosocial processes accounting for health-care professionals’ (gender and social status) biases in the assessment and treatment of a patient’s pain;
(2) investigate the role of interpersonal dynamics in pain experiences, namely, pain-related social support interactions for the promotion of functional autonomy among adults with chronic pain.  In her research she uses a wide range of quantitative (e.g., experimental), qualitative (e.g., grounded-theory) and knowledge synthesis methodologies (e.g., scoping and systematic reviews). 

Several scientific awards have recognized her scientific contributions, namely, the Research Merit Award of the Portuguese Health Psychology Society (2008), Young Researcher Award of the Portuguese Psychological Association (2013), Best Paper Awards by the Portuguese Association for the Development of Pain Therapies (ASTOR) and the Grüenenthal PAIN Prize 2016.