Dr. Maria Joana Ferreira da Silva, Ph.D. in Biosciences since 2012, is an FCT associated researcher in BIOPOLIS/CIBIO (CEECIND/01937/2017, 2019-2025). Before, she was an FCT-funded postdoctoral researcher (SFRH/BPD/88496/2012, 2013-2019, five months interruption for maternity responsibilities). Her main research areas are Conservation Biology and Biological Anthropology. She investigates the relationship between human and non-human primates and its impacts on the distribution, socio-ecology, and the conservation of African primate species. The overarching goal of her research is to improve the conservation management of threatened taxa in developing countries. She has been investigating African primates (Papio sp., Pan troglodytes verus, Colobus polykomos, Piliocolobus badius temminckii, Cercopithecus petaurista buettikoferi, C. campbelli and Chlorocebus sabaeus, Cercocebus sp.) in Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Mauritania, and Mozambique using inter-disciplinary methods (e.g., social sciences and ethnography, population genetics and genomics, meta-barcoding, and spatial ecology). She has published on themes such as conservation genetics and genomics, human perceptions on non-human primates, determinants of gene flow across large scales, illegal wildlife trafficking, primate behavioural adaptations and human evolution. For the last five years (2018 to 2023), MJFS published 16 peer-reviewed papers and two book chapters (reaching 27 publications in total from 2012; h index = 13, 509 citations in 19st April 2023). She delivered > 60 communications in scientific/outreach meetings (22 as an invited keynote speaker). During her postdoctoral experience, she was awarded over 240 k euros from national and international funding agencies (e.g. FCT, The Born Free Foundation, The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, Primate Conservation Inc.). She is the PI of the PRIMACTION project (2023-present), the co-PI of FCT-funded PRIMATOMICS project (2016-2019) and co-researcher in more than 10 funded projects. She is an invited lecturer on Primatology/Conservation Genetics/ Population Genetics in national and international Universities. She supervised one PhD student and eleven postgraduates¿ students and currently co-supervises three PhD students. She is internationally recognised as a specialist in primatology and conservation. She is as IUCN conservation status invited-assessor (Papio papio, and Piliocolobus badius and Piliocolobus badius spp. temminckii) and is a co-author in the Regional Action plan for Cercocebys atys. She is a member of the IUCN Primate exploitation/Human-Primate Interactions working group. She has been invited to deliver plenary talks at expert¿s symposiums, such as the international symposium Frontiers of Baboon Research (Germany, 2017) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation Human Evolution workshop (Mozambique, 2019). She is a member of TROPIBIO and BIODESERTS research groups in CIBIO-InBIO and a senior researcher of the interdisciplinary and international Paleo Primate Project on human evolution in the Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. She is an invited evaluator for grants awarded by the International Society of Primatology and by the French National Research Agency (Living Earth panel). She was the president of the Portuguese Primatology Association from 2019 to 2021.