Marisa Cruz is Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon and Researcher at Phonetics and Phonology Lab (CLUL/FLUL), University of Lisbon. She is currently a member of the Direction Board of Center of Linguistics of the University of Lisbon. She developed her PhD on prosodic variation in European Portuguese (phrasing, intonation and rhythm), obtained in 2013 in the same institution. Her Master thesis (2009), focusing the prosodic and intonational profile of stuttering in adults, was granted the Portuguese Association for Linguistics award (Prémio APL). She currently investigates visual prosody in European Portuguese, by comparing the prosodic role of gestures in spoken language with the prosody of Portuguese Sign Language. She is also studying the role of visual cues for language acquisition and for language, social and communicative development, targeting both typical and atypical populations. She has several scientific and academic achievements: (i) edition of 3 special issues in peer reviewed international journals, (ii) first editor of an international book, (iii) (co-)author of 14 book chapters, (iv) (co-)author of 13 papers in peer reviewed, national and international, journals, (v) co-editor of 1 international proceedings, (vi) (co-)author of 9 international proceedings, (vii) (co-)author of 5 invited talks, (viii) (co-)author of 71 international talks/posters, (ix) (co-)author of 24 national talks/posters, (x) co-author of 16 linguistic resources, most of them relevant for the field of language acquisition and development, and clinical linguistics. Since 2007, when she joined the Phonetics and Phonology Lab (CLUL/FLUL), she has been involved in 10 research projects as team member and she also collaborated as consultant in an international project. She integrates the editorial board of 3 journals, she is Associate Editor of 1 international journal, and she has been involved in scientific committees and organizing committees of multiple national and international meetings. She is also highly committed with dissemination and knowledge transfer activities: (i) she actively participates in educational events targeting pre-university students or young students at the university level, (ii) she collaborates in the scientific coordination and organization of summer schools in experimental methods, being also responsible for some courses, (iii) she collaborates in teaching activities, both at undergraduate and graduate levels, in FLUL, since 2010, (iv) she is (co-)supervisor of Master and PhD theses. Her main research interests include: prosodic variation (intonation, phrasing, and rhythm), visual prosody in spoken modality and gestures, language acquisition and development in (a)typically developing children (e.g., Autism Disorder, Down Syndrome, at-risk), and language impairments and disorders. In all activities developed, she is highly committed in establishing a bridge between the academy and society.