I am a Biologist with advanced formation in Ecology, Marine Biology and Microbiology and obtained my Master-degree in Biology from the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Germany, in 2009. I completed my ‘European Doctorate’ in Biology in July 2014 at the Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR) and the University of Évora, Portugal. I received the highest mentioning - excellent with distinction - and the faculty prize as - best student of the year - for my studies on animal-microbe symbioses from the University of Jena, and the - summa cum laude - mentioning for my doctorate on the chemical identification of fish pheromones from the University of Évora. My Masters and doctoral studies were marked by research stays at internationally recognized institutions, such as the Rijksunversiteit Groningen (The Netherlands), and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Germany). From July 2014 to March 2016, I worked as post-doctoral researcher at CCMAR, investigating marine sponge and coral microbiomes using metagenomics and genomics combined with microbial cultivation. After the birth of my second child, I joined the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB), at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon (UL) in 2017, to seek for novel biotechnological appliances from marine symbiotic communities. In 2019, I was awarded one of the highly competitive 6-year, individual research contracts (CEECIND/00788/2017) for junior investigators from the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT), to develop my own research line on octocoral-microbe symbiosis and the sustainable exploitation of secondary metabolites from octocoral-associated microbes. From September 2020 to August 2022, I was an invited assistant professor at the Department of Bioengineering (DBE), at IST-UL teaching Microbiology laboratories, and classes on Coral Reef Ecology and Microbiomes, Chemical Ecology, Metagenomics and Metadata.