Helena Petrilli is currently head of the Department of Materials Physics and Mechanics at the University of São Paulo and a Full Professor at that University Institute. She holds a degree in Physics from the University of São Paulo (1982), a Bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of São Paulo (1982), a Master's degree in Physics from the University of São Paulo (1985), a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of São Paulo (1989), a sandwich doctorate at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart-Germany, a post-doc at the IBM Research Division in Zurich-Switzerland (1996), and a Lecturer title (Laurea Specialistica) at the University of São Paulo (2000). She has experience in Physics, with emphasis on Condensed Matter Physics, working mainly on the following topics: electronic structure, electrical and magnetic hyperfine properties, transition metals and alloys. She works in the Nanomol Group, a Group dedicated to the research of inorganic and organic materials, and also hybrid combinations, through theoretical condensed-matter physics and theoretical chemistry approaches. In the research group, they study metals, semiconductors and semiconducting oxides, mainly as nanostructures, focusing on their electronic, optical, and magnetic properties. The properties are studied from the atomistic point of view, but with very different formalisms. Starting from Classical Molecular Dynamics, the time-evolution of structural conformation for systems with many thousands of atoms can be followed at finite temperature, under chosen constraints. For electronic and optical properties, for smaller but still large and complex systems (usually carbon-based but not only), semi-empirical quantum formalisms are adopted, and finally, for specific model systems, ab initio quantum treatments within Density Functional Theory, or even beyond-mean-field formalisms, are used.