Rafaela Geraldo is currently a PhD student in Biotechnology at the School of Biotechnology – Portuguese Catholic University (ESB-UCP). Her PhD project, CARDIOLENTIL, focuses on understanding the effects of lentil consumption on cardiovascular health and diabetes mellitus. She completed a Master’s degree in Applied Microbiology in 2021 with distinction (grade: 18/20) at the same institution, receiving a Merit Scholarship for academic excellence. Her dissertation focused on infection microbiology, specifically developing and characterizing a bioluminescent system for Streptococcus agalactiae to study neonatal meningitis. In 2018, she finished a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP) with a final grade of 18/20. Her curricular internship focused on immunology and infection biology, contributing to research on the effects of maternal vaccination with recombinant GAPDH (rGAPDH) from Streptococcus agalactiae on the central nervous system development of offspring. Throughout her academic journey, she undertook extracurricular internships at Necton S.A. – Microalgae Business Unit, collaborating on microalgae research and production, and at FCUP, where she participated in the development of fluorescent carbon nanomaterials responsive to glucose and other diabetes-related molecules. Rafaela has attended various workshops and research meetings and has presented nine posters and four oral presentations at international conferences. She published four articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (h-index:2; 29 citations) and has co-supervised four BSc students.