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Governing Body Fellow

I am a cognitive neuroscientist with background in clinical psychology. I began my career as a clinical psychologist in 2005, after an MA in Psychology at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Four years of clinical experience with diverse mental illnesses gave me a good understanding of patients’ needs and inspiration for research into new avenues for treatments. This led me back to University, in 2008, to acquire deeper knowledge of molecular biology, biochemistry and neuroanatomy via a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences.

In 2009, I was awarded a PhD fellowship by the Portuguese Science Foundation and integrated the Doctoral Programme in Experimental Biology and Biomedicine, organized by the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, in Coimbra, to investigate compulsivity in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This flexible PhD fellowship enabled me to conduct my studies in two different research sites: University of Coimbra, Portugal and University of Cambridge, UK. The opportunity of gathering complementary expertise from both sites/supervisors was crucial for my training as a neuroscientist.

After obtaining my PhD in 2015, I moved back to Cambridge to work with Professor Trevor Robbins, an expert on compulsivity. My new project in OCD will be extended for the next 4 years given my recently awarded Sir Henry Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship.