About Me

I am an Invited Assistant Professor at the Departament of Computer Science and Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) - Universidade de Lisboa and a researcher at INESC-ID Lisboa (IDSS scientific area).

I obtained a MSc in Biological Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico in 2013 with a dissertation on Identification of microRNAs and analysis of their expression in Eucalyptus globulus, with Professor Ana Teresa Freitas and Dr. Jorge Paiva, in collaboration between Knowledge Discovery and Bioinformatics Group of INESC-ID and the Institute of Scientific and Tropical Research, both located in Lisbon.

I obtained my PhD in Biotechnology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil (2018), in a collaboration with INESC-ID in Lisbon and the National Laboratory of Scientific Computation in Rio de Janeiro. This work, in the field of Metagenomics applied to oil exploration, was supervised by Professors Lucymara Lima, Ana Teresa Freitas and Ana Tereza Vasconcelos, yielding several tools, still in use today, in this specific domain of metagenomics.

In my Post Doc I worked with Professor Pedro Monteiro and Professor Miguel Teixeira in the creation of YEASTRACT+, a portal that combines the existing database information of all yeast species, providing bioinformatics tools for the prediction and visualization of gene and genomic regulation based on orthologous regulatory associations described for other yeast species, based on comparative genomics.

During all my academic life, I gave great importance to extracurricular skills, having participated in various student groups such as the Board of European Students of Technology (BEST), the Students Association, where I was administrator and treasurer, and the School's Pedagogical Council, in which I belonged to the executive committee.

Currently my main interests are Data Management in Life Sciences, I am coordinating the Portuguese participation in the Pillar 2 of the Genomics Data Infrastructure (GDI) Project.

Participation in Projects

• Mar 2024 - Feb 2027: EOSC-ENTRUST - European Open Science Cloud – European Network of TRUSTed Research Environments. Funded by EOSC.
• Feb 2024 - Feb 2026: Enhancing National Research Data Accessibility through Federated European Genome-phenome Archive. Funded by FCT (2023.11060.CPCA). Principal Investigator
• Feb 2023 - July 2023: Initiating interactions in training in bioinformatics and data management between ELIXIR and Brazilian R&I organisations. Funded by ELIXIR. Project lead
• Nov 2022 - 2026: GDI - Genomics Data Infrastructure. Funded by European Union’s Digital Europe (101081813).
• Oct 2022 - May 2023: ELIXIR PT as a case-study for the deployment of Local EGA/Beacon v2 instances. Funded by ELIXIR.
• Sept 2021 - July 2023: ELIXIR-CONVERGE - Connect and align ELIXIR Nodes to deliver sustainable FAIR life-science data management services. Funded by the European Commission.
• 2019 - 2021: ELIXIR Federated Human Data. Funded by ELIXIR. Principal Investigator
• Jun 2018 - Jun 2021: Research grant from the project Biodata.pt - Infraestrutura Portuguesa de Dados Biológicos (candidatura 02223 - Portugal 2020) funded by FCT/MCTES.
• Jan 2016 - Apr 2018: Research Grant from the project Prospeção de genes aplicados a biodegradação de hidrocarbonetos e produção de surfactantes utilizando abordagens computacionais, a collaboration project betweeen INESC-ID and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil, supported by GALP-energia Brazil.
• Aug 2015 - Oct 2015: Research Grant from the FCT funded project DATASTORM: LARGE-SCALE DATA MANAGEMENT IN CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS (EXCL/EEI-ESS/0257/2012).
• Jun 2014 - Jun 2015: Reverse-Sandwich PhD Grant from FAPERJ, Brazil: Search for genes applied to the biodegradation of hydrocarbons and surfactant production using computational approaches (E-26/101.230/2014).
• Aug 2013 - Jun 2014: Research Grant in the FCT funded project CAMP: Computational Analysis of MicroRNAs in Plants (PTDC/EIA-EIA/122534/2010).
• Apr 2012 - Jan 2013: Research Grant in the FCT funded project microEgo: Did you ask for something small? The microRNAs power in a Eucalyptus tension world! (PTDC/AGR-GPL/098179/2008).

Developed Software:

• Created by me:
  • BioSurfDB / Biosurfactants and Biodegradation Database
  • Oil & Gas Virtual Research Environment
• Contributed to optimization and maintenance:
  • YEASTRACT+ (Yeast Search for Transcriptional Regulators And Consensus Tracking)+

Publications (Check Google Scholar).

Other activities

• Executive Masters in Management of Research Infrastructures from the Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca
• Gulbenkian Training Programme in Bioinformatics courses, IGC, Oeiras (Portugal):
  • 2013 - Analysing Whole-Genome Shotgun Metagenomic Data
  • 2012 - Automated and Reproducible Analysis of NGS Data
  • 2012 - Biostatistical Foundations in Bioinformatics
  • 2013 - Analysing Whole-Genome Shotgun Metagenomic Data

Hobbies

My main interrest outside research is Music and Photography. I play mostly Blues and Swing Jazz; I also love photography and video, with a soft spot for film photography.