In 2002 completed at FCUL a 5 years degree in Physical Engineering and holds a PhD in Physics since 2009 with experimental work performed at CERN ISOLDE radioactive ion beam facility (Isotope mass Separator On-Line facility). The Ph.D. covered many topics ranging from radiation detectors to nuclear and ion beam techniques used for materials characterization and imaging. From 2010 to 2015 Ana was a Post-doctoral researcher at the Nuclear Microprobe facility of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) working on ion beam tomography. Within this period, from May 2011 to October 2014, Ana managed and was the team leader of an R&D project under the same topic with funding from FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia), the national agency for science and technology in Portugal, with a 92.322,00 € budget (salaries excluded).
The projects that Ana enrolled ever since have been always interdisciplinary and oriented to different areas of engineering and physical technologies.
Currently collaborating with UNINOVA in the scope of the TransFlexTeg European project, Ana is leader of one Work-Package focusing the characterization and production of thermoelectric thin films. Other tasks include devices design, characterization and development of prototypes as well as providing assistance to the project coordination, masters supervision and lab classes tutoring. More recently, Ana is also involved in research focusing on the development of thermoelectric pastes for 3D printing aiming the fabrication of thermoelectric generators.
R&D areas that Ana is particularly drawn to are: materials science, materials for energy conversion devices and medical applications – including radiation detectors development, testing and data acquisition and processing.