My pluridisciplinary academic and scientific trajectory starts with a PhD in live sciences at the Harvard Medical School where I was 4 years (FCT-funded: SFRH/BD/6232/2001). On my return to Portugal in 2006, I was awarded a competitive FCT Project Grant to develop research at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (Principal investigator: PTDC/SAU-MII/71140/2006; 25% success rate). This experience, still formally confined to live sciences, added to my scientific research experience, skills related to project management, mentoring of Master students and management of national and international collaborations. During this time, and while working at the forefront of innovative biomedical research, as can be easily attested by the number and impact factor of my publication record (with 6 high impact papers, including a 1st authorship in Cell; IF: 33.1), I developed a profound interest in social sciences, since my work had led me to understand that solutions to health problems would gain from an integrated approach with social sciences.
In 2007 I joined a second degree in Sociology (18/20 final grade) in which I acquired knowledge and skills to study science and technology (S&T). Since then, and while developing some research in live sciences (co-authorship in 2014), I started a post-doctorate (FCT-funded: SFRH/BPD/77611/2011) focused on S&T processes in the private sector. This resulted in 4 indexed papers, and led to a successful application to the highly competitive FCT Project Grants (13% success rate) (Principal Investigator: PTDC/IVC-ESCT/0073/2014). Also, I am a member of the direction of the Portuguese Association of Sociology and the current director of its journal Sociologia On Line. Moreover, I have been teaching undergraduate sociology course and participating in outreach activities. In addition, I coordinated CESNOVA (currently CICS.NOVA) participation at FCSH’s Innovation Centre, a structure that incubates spinout companies.
My scientific path affords me 1) a multi-angle perspective into scientific inquiries; 2) the ability to understand, communicate and operate within and in-between specific field languages; and 3) the ability to link academic and corporate actors. It is precisely this singular path that will allow me to consolidate a scientific career in Social Studies of Science and Technology.
