Career Profile: Principal Investigator in pathogen evolutionary genomics at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS, UMinho), co-leading the PEvoGEN group. Ph.D. in Health Sciences (2009) with international research at the University of Rochester Medical Center (USA), Wageningen University (Netherlands), and the UT Austin IC2 Institute (USA), establishing a profile that bridges clinical medicine, molecular epidemiology, and computational bioinformatics. Secured scientific independence via the competitive FCT Investigator Programme. I have coordinated 8 funded projects (FCT, European Commission, Gilead) securing over €480,000. Recently, I secured EuroHPC allocations on the MareNostrum 5 ACC supercomputer, demonstrating the capacity to manage massive computational infrastructures required for genomic foundation models. Contributions to Science (Ideas, Tools, Knowledge): My research addresses drug resistance evolution in HIV-1 and M. tuberculosis, shifting computational epidemiology from reactive descriptions to predictive, AI-driven methodologies. I pioneered the integration of Machine Learning and Generative AI for clinical drug resistance prediction, currently leading the PREVENT-HIV pilot study fine-tuning genomic language models based on Evo2. Committed to Open Science, I led the development of widely adopted open-source tools such as the SNAPPy pipeline for automated HIV-1 transmission mapping and PyHIV. My foundational contributions to evolutionary genomics have been published in journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, and Molecular Biology and Evolution. Contributions to the Development of Individuals and Teams: Dedicated to training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists, I currently supervise 7 Ph.D. students and have completed the supervision of 2 doctoral theses and 13 master's dissertations. In 2022, I co-founded the PEvoGEN research group, where I co-lead an interdisciplinary team of over 10 researchers bridging wet-lab virology, clinical data science, and Artificial Intelligence. My trainees actively secure positions in clinical bioinformatics and pharmaceutical R&D. I also actively contribute to global capacity building, delivering advanced bioinformatics training at universities in Cape Verde, the Dominican Republic, and Mozambique, and coordinate Erasmus+ projects focused on pedagogical innovation in biosciences. Contributions to the Research Community and Society: I actively bridge the gap between computational research and clinical translation. As President of B-acis.pt (Center for Health Innovation), I coordinate translational collaborations between researchers, clinicians, and health stakeholders. Recognizing the regulatory requirements of modern research, I am an appointed member of the UMinho strategic working group for Artificial Intelligence, developing institutional policies for responsible AI use. I have completed over 60 peer reviews, serve as a Topic/Associate Editor for journals like Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, and maintain strong public engagement through national media interviews and opinion articles on AI and public health. My commitment to applied science is further demonstrated by provisional patents and the co-founding of the laboratory management startup LabOrders.com.