Valter Mendes Fernandes is a Researcher at the Centre for History of the University of Lisbon (CH-ULisboa) and a PhD candidate funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, grant 2025.00812.BD) in the History of Discoveries and Expansion at the same institution. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in History and a Master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary History from the University of Lisbon. His Master’s thesis, titled "Gazing with greedie eyes on the desired land": English Representations of Iberian Expansion in the First Half of the 17th Century, analyzes English narratives about the Iberian presence in the early modern period. Currently, his doctoral research focuses on the Atlantic world, with an emphasis on the West African coast between the 15th and 18th centuries, exploring its representations and transformations. He is a member of the "Imperial Dynamics" Research Group (CH-ULisboa) and the international network GLOPORTS – International Network of Atlantic Seaports and Global Interactions. His publications include academic articles and opinion pieces, where he discusses topics such as maritime expansion, colonialism, and historical memory. He has also participated in international conferences, including Africa, Caribbean, Americas: Liberating the Shadows of the Past (University of Alabama, 2025). Beyond his research, Fernandes supervises undergraduate students and collaborates on interdisciplinary projects, such as 4-OCEANS (ERC), dedicated to methodologies in maritime and environmental history.