B.Sc. in Pharmacy from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (1991) and Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) in 1999. She is Associate Professor, Director of CBQF – State Associate Laboratory and Associate Director of the College of Biotechnology of UCP. She is the President of EBRI - European Bioproducts Research Institute. She is the leader of the Bioactives and Bioproducts Research Laboratory. She has established strong interaction with industry mainly in Agrofood sector. Main research interests include development and characterization of bioactives and by-product valorization through bioprocesses and extraction processes aiming to obtain high-added value products to be applied to Food and other industries. She co-authored ca. 530 papers in international journals, a creator of 25 patents and she has been involved in the supervision/co-supervision of 39 concluded PhD theses and coordinated/co-coordinated ca. 100 externally funded projects. She has a h-index of 57 with ca. 13200 citations (November 2020).
Yet, she is one of the scientists in the World's Top Most Cited Researchers in 2019 and 2020 in the area of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forest, according to the "World"s Top 2% Scientists" ranking, prepared by Stanford University (USA) and also highlighted for their impact on science throughout their career.