About Me

I have been a professor in higher education for over 24 years. This role required me to work in four areas, for which I was evaluated every three years: management and administration; teaching, supervision, and professional development; scientific and educational research; and academic outreach and knowledge transfer activities.

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As a professor, I coordinated 21 modules and taught over 38, planning and developing accurate and effective content  based on scientific data. I also wrote the module structure in accordance with policies and submitted it to committees for approval. I prepared and developed teaching materials, including audiovisuals, for synchronous and asynchronous undergraduate and graduate classes. I planned, designed, and implemented methods for assessing student progress through assignments, individual and group projects, tests and exams, seminars, and other assessment processes. I also gave the lectures and implemented new teaching methods that I made available for scientific discussion, and were published.

Previously, I had teaching experiences  in secondary schools, participating in the discovery of young people's dreams and achievements.

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My last main scientific research topics have been about plant nutrition and functional food for sports and daily performance. Earlier I worked in Lisbon as a pioneer in the attempt to express genes encoding plant proteinases with milk-clotting activity in other eukaryotic organisms. Before that I was an Erasmus Trainee doing research about the production of alkaloids by Catharanthus roseus cell cultures, and the regulation of genes in the pathway for these metabolites, namely those expressing the enzymes tryptophan decarboxylase and strictosidine synthase, now recognized as crucial to produce indole alkaloids in plants. But, my first experience as a researcher began when I was a student and worked with biotechnology, in plant micropropagation, using cotyledons of the species Pinus pinaster. On my second graduation, during one of the hospital trainings, I couldn't do this without adding a bit of research into it.  Since I was a student I've been participating in conferences, seminars, and other scientific meetings with oral and poster presentations, and have been a guest speaker at scientific and professional events. I have published several articles in specialized journals, including book chapters, and hold several intellectual property registrations, including a family of 9 patents issued in different countries.

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My work and training history has also involved collaboration  with several institutes, and faculties, hospitals and different types of organizations, partners and interested parties, primary and secondary schools, city councils and community health centres, aiming knowledge transfer and promoting healthy eating habits. I collaborated with the industry and sports centres as a counselling expert, sharing information, accelerating teams learning, and fostering innovation, delivering lectures and conferences, and developing dietary plans and meals better adapted to the needs of athletes and active people.