Her scientific interests have been polymers always, beginning the career as engineer at the industry, Companhia Nacional de Petroquímica, Polymers Division (1980-1984), followed by the integration as assistant in NOVA University, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, FCT NOVA, Section of Chemical Engineering, associated to the teaching and research of Polymer Science and Chemical Reaction Engineering (graduation courses of Reactor Design). Holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering (Copolymerisation Kinetics, 1993) from the same university, where is Associate Professor. She integrates the research centre LAQV-REQUIMTE-Associated Laboratory for Green Chemistry, and the group CHARM – Cultural Heritage and Responsive Materials. Since the launch of the Department of Conservation and Restoration (1998) has a strong collaboration in teaching part of the course Polymers in Conservation and supervising MSc and 6 PhD students (2 finished). In this field her interests are related with different aspects dealing with the behaviour of all kind of polymers, synthetic, semi-synthetic or natural, applied to cultural heritage, mainly to contemporary art and photography. Has been involved in research projects dealing with the correlation between polymer’s ageing phenomena and structure, polymerisation mechanism and industrial production or processing method. This knowledge is achieved by the relationship established between the polymer´s behaviour at molecular/chemical/structural and physical levels, mainly obtained by spectral analysis and evaluation of their molecular weight distributions, thermophysical and mechanical properties.
“NEMOSINE - Innovative packaging solutions for storage and conservation of 20th century cultural heritage of artefacts based on cellulose derivatives” (2018-2022). EU funded project H2020-NMBP-35-2017 - grant 76081. Coordinator FCT NOVA - Ana Maria Ramos (http://www.nemosineproject.eu/).