I am a teacher and researcher. As a teacher at the University of the Algarve on our own courses and in association (History of the Mediterranean), I supervised 2nd and 3rd cycle theses (including at other universities), and have been responsible for directing and reformulating undergraduate and master's programmes. I am currently director of the Department of Arts and Humanities. I joined the IEM board in 2020, being elected director of Medievalista, an online journal fostering the publication of monographic issues and internationalisation of editorial staff, and consolidating its dissemination and impact in the community (7,000 hits in VI-2023). As a researcher, I have published and coordinated decisive studies on the Medieval History of the Algarve (the Christian conquest, frontier society and the economy of the sea), and especially on the military orders, bringing innovation and broadening horizons - viz. on the recruitment of the orders and their relationship with the cities, participation of brothers in the circuits of exchange and mobility, hierarchical structure and international nature of these institutions, discourses and memories legitimising violence and associating war with religion, and rituals of life and death. I thus renewed the history of the orders as an essential part of the wider dynamics of the kingdom and the West whilst my cross-referencing of themes and perspectives, using different scales of observation, dovetailed with the interdisciplinary culture integral to IEM's institutional tradition. The merit of these investigations has been recognised in my award of the municipal gold medal (Palmela) for my coaction in the production of the Meetings on Military Orders, through my membership of scientific boards of journals, my membership of a Spanish research group and participation in various Spanish-funded projects. Also, through my membership of FCT evaluation panels and invitation to carry out identical functions for the FCT's Belgian counterpart (FRS-FNRS).