Cristiana Vale Pires is a researcher collaborating at the Research Centre for Human Development and a lecturer at the Faculty of Education and Psychology of the Catholic University of Portugal. She is a founding member and manager at the Portuguese NGO Kosmicare. She is a harm reduction specialist with vast experience in collaborating and coordinating community-based projects in the fields of drugs field, sex work, HIV and other STI prevention, chemsex, harm reduction counseling, gender mainstreaming, prevention, detection, and response to gender-based violence (co-funded by the Portuguese Government and private organizations). She coordinated several action-research European projects focused on sex work, new psychoactive substances, heavy episodic drinking, and the development of gender perspectives in the drug field (co-funded by the European Commission). She also collaborated as a researcher in 2 projects financed by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) focused on care politics and livepolitics in economic and social crises. She led the design of innovative community-based projects in Portugal, such as Safe!n (creation of a Safer Nightlife label in Portugal); AllCool (community-based intervention targetting heavy episodic drinkers), Sexism Free Night (collaboration to promote safer and more egalitarian nightlife environments); Ponto Lilás and PrideCare (collaborative outreach intervention to prevent sexual violence in large scale festivals), the chemsex campaign and the Queercare project (harm reduction collaborative network targeting LGBTQI+ who use drugs in sexual environments). She also led the development and implementation of the Harm Reduction Counseling service, a person-centered service providing an individualized safe space for honest and destigmatized conversations about drugs and supporting the management and self-regulation of drug use. She has been collaborating as an expert and consultant for different European organizations, namely the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe, the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA - expert for the risk assessment of new psychoactive substances), the European Forum for Urban Security (EFUS), and more recently at the SOGIESC Unit/ Anti-Discrimination Department of the Council of Europe. She is an external trainer at the Institute for Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies, P.I. (ICAD, I.P.), and CRIAP. She is also integrated into several international working groups and networks, such as NEWNET, the European Group on Gender and Drugs, the Drinking Studies Network, and the International Night Studies Network.