Born and based in Porto, she is an Associate Professor at the University of Aveiro (UA), an integrated researcher at INET-md, and a collaborator at CESEM at NOVA FCSH (NOVA University Lisbon), where she has also taught. Improvisation and musical understanding in learning—explored in her doctoral thesis—are among the themes she pursues as a teacher and musician, alongside creativity, collaborative practices and participatory art in educational contexts. She writes and designs articles and projects on these topics, some in collaboration with other researchers. She teaches Music Didactics on the Master’s programmes in Music Teaching and in Elementary Education, within the Department of Communication and Art and the Department of Education and Psychology. As a pianist, singer, composer and lyricist, she is dedicated to the creative and interpretative exploration of song, and has released the original albums Mulher Avestruz (2003), Colapsopira (2009), Paluí (2013) and Massaiá (2023), which reflect a search for innovation and development within the genre. Stylistic fusions—especially involving jazz, fado, popular and “classical” music—as well as the solo voice-and-piano format, improvisation, phonetic, literary imagination and lusophony, and the reworking of pianistic forms for vocal and thematic expansion lie at the heart of her expressive and creative practice. The musical work Paluí is the genesis of transdisciplinary research and artistic (co-)creation projects developed within the Portuguese community, such as Se Queres Saber o Que é o Paluí… Põe o Teu Dedo Aqui! (2015) and Paluí, Está Aqui?… (2019)—the latter guided by the fight against the stigma of mental illness. These projects involved nearly a thousand participants from diverse educational, social and institutional settings (schools, universities and hospitals), and she has presented them at international conferences, including as a keynote speaker. Similarly, Massaiá—with Vol. 2 currently in production—has fostered the project Espaços do Som: Massaiá na Recriação de Polifonias de Sentido, funded by INET-md and FCT, which aims to study dialogues between music and the visual and plastic arts, photography, video and multimedia. She has created and directed staged musical performances for children and music teachers, such as Um Sonho Americano (2011) and Em Canto se Conta o Natal (2013), commissioned by the Educational Service of Casa da Música (Porto); and, as an artistic outcome of a project implemented in the primary schools of S.M.Feira, Paluí: Histórias Sonoras que a Língua Portuguesa Conta—a book and a musical theatre. Her artistic activity includes collaborations with musicians such as Brendan Hemsworth, Elizabeth Davis, José Fidalgo, António Aguiar, Arnaldo Fonseca, Pedro Almeida, Carlos Mendes, Andrés Tarabbia, Mário Santos in recordings and concerts; participation in radio programmes (Cinco Minutos de Jazz, Paixões Cruzadas) and soap-opera soundtracks; performances as a guest artist at TEDx Aveiro (2013) and as a singer in concerts across the country, including with the Filarmonia das Beiras Orchestra; and the co-production of several music videos, documentaries and concert films—many of them repeatedly awarded at festivals worldwide—such as Navegar, Paluí (2014) and, from the Massaiá project, À Parte da Vida (2024) and O homem-Merda (2025). She has studied with several researchers and musicians, including E. Gordon, C. Azzara, B. Bolton, J. Paynter, Helena Sá e Costa and C. Bochmann, and attended the Porto Jazz School, where she worked with Paulo Gomes. Her interest in improvisation is also reflected in her work on Voice and Body (Z. Molik), through studies with J. Parente, and on Circle Singing (B. McFerrin), working regularly with Sofia Ribeiro, Manuel Linhares, Tiago Rizumik and Juan Andrés Ospina. She holds a PhD in Music Education (UA), an MA in Musical Sciences (U.Coimbra), a degree in Philosophy (U.Porto) and a Diploma in Advanced Piano Studies (CMPorto).