Since I was really young (6 or 7 years old) I always loved, had and worked with aquaria. Even before University, I did several internships related to aquatic organisms. Even though I initially aimed for a Veterinary degree, I ended up taking a degree in Aquatic Sciences, from ICBAS - Univ. of Porto (similar to Marine Biology). After a 6 month internship at Lisbon Oceanarium and 5 months working as a fisheries observer on board of the Azorean Tuna fish Fleet, in October 2010 I achieved my first research scholarship related with deep sea organisms from Azores, assisting PhD Marina Carreiro-Silva at IMAR - Uni. Azores. With a short interruption of about 2 years working for "FlyingSharks", I have kept working with deep sea organisms ever since, which sums up to over 10 years of experience, mainly with cold-water corals. Through out these past years I was able to participate on several field work trips at sea and oceanographic campaigns, collecting data, images and mainly collecting specimens form the Azorean deep sea, for several projects, such as: ARQDAÇO, CONDOR, CORALCHANGE, MIDAS, MERCES, ATLAS, iATLANTIC, etc. In 2015/16 I was part of the planning, setting up and running the DeepSeaLab facility, at IMAR & OKEANOS research center, Uni. Azores, at Faial island, and since 2017 I've been working as laboratory technician responsible for this lab. of aquaria for research of deep sea organisms from the Azores.

Ecology, biology and ecotoxicology, alongside with climate change and anthropogenic impacts on deep sea corals, and their husbandry in aquaria facilities.