Sofia R. Pauleta finished her Ph.D. in Biochemistry-Biophysical Chemistry, in 2003 from the NOVA University of Lisbon, under the supervision of Prof. Graham W. Pettigrew, University of Edinburgh (UK) and Prof. Isabel Moura, NOVA University of Lisbon. In 2007, after a post-doctoral fellowship under the co-supervision of Prof. Ivano Bertini and Prof. Paola Turano, at CERM, University of Florence (Italy) she returned to Portugal. She was awarded an Assistant Researcher position at REQUIMTE, followed by an IF-FCT-2013 researcher contract, a highly competitive program, as Principal Investigator. In 2019, she started a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor at FCT NOVA (teaching 9h/week at the level of BSc, Master and PhD degree), and since 2022 is the Coordinator of Master's degree in Biochemistry FCT NOVA. In 2024, she became Associate Professor in Biochemistry. Since 2009, she is the PI of the Microbial Stress Lab@UCIBIO NOVA (https://ucibio.pt/research-groups/lab/microbial-stress). At the moment, her team has 3 PhD students, 1 MSc graduate, and 1 Research Assistant and 1 undergraduate student. In the last 5-years she has graduated 2 PhD, 11 MSc and 19 BSc, and supervised 4 postdoctoral researchers and 10 BI scholarships and students from international exchange programs. Her lab uses Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, as model organisms. These bacteria are considered by CDC to be urgent health threats and are classified by WHO as high priority pathogens for R&D of new antibiotics; thus, Microbial Stress Lab aims to identify and characterize enzymes as new drug targets, which will have an impact on both the health care system and society. These enzymes are involved in the detoxification of reactive oxygen species, metal resistance and alternative electron acceptors (nitrite and nitrate), which are essential for bacterial survival during infection. In addition, her lab has been focusing on the contribution of these enzymes/proteins to biofilm formation and on the identification of compounds with antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activity (see latest meeting communications), and as possible inhibitors of these enzymes. Her lab has expertise in steady-state kinetics, spectroscopic techniques (visible, EPR, NMR, CD, resonance Raman), biomolecular NMR, microcalorimetry (ITC and DSC) and heterologous production of metalloproteins, gene expression, biofilm formation and composition (E. coli, methicillin-resistant S. aureus). She published 66 (56 in Q1) peer-reviewed manuscripts, plus 1 under minor revision, and 9 Book Chapters, being co-Editor of 2 books. Excluding the book chapters, she is the corresponding author of 35 manuscripts and first author of 9, with an h-index of 20 and h-10 of 39 (Scopus), and >1600 citations (GoogleScholar, h=22). She has made 39 Oral communications in International Scientific Meetings and presented 155 Poster Communications in International Scientific Meetings and 57 in National Scientific Meetings, and deposit 4 BMRB and 9 PDB datasets. She has been the chair and co-chair of 17 Scientific Conferences, Workshops and International Training Schools. She is in the editorial board of Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences. She reviewed >75 manuscripts, including Q1 high impact journals (Nature, Chemical Science (2021-Award outstanding reviewer), JACS, Angewandte Chemie, CCR) and she has been part of evaluation panels for ANR (France), BBSRC (UK), and Dutch Science Council, EU infrastructure MOSBRI, and EU Commission. She has also been in the jury for HR contracts (2017-2022:postdoc-10, MSc-7, BSc-17), and main examiner in 8 PhD, 6 MSc and 20 BSc degrees. She has received as a PI, project grants in a total of 840 785 € in R&D Projects and 15 700 € in Bilateral Projects with France and Germany. She is also involved in two COST Action networks, and actively organizing and participating in outreach activities in at least 2 events per year.