Ana Ferreira

Integrated member CICS.NOVA

in

My pluridisciplinary academic and scientific trajectory starts with a PhD in Health Sciences at the Harvard Medical School where I was 4 years, and focused on physiological and pathological mechanisms.

The ending of my PhD coincided with the financing, by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, of a research project that I coordinated as Principal Investigator and that had a final evaluation of excellent. This experience, still formally confined to Health Sciences, added to my scientific research experience, skills related to project management, mentoring of Master students and management of national and international collaborations.

During this time, and while working at the forefront of innovative biomedical research, as can be easily attested by the number and impact factor of my publication record (with 5 papers published in 5 years including one first authorship in Cell and a co-authorship in Nature Medicine), I developed a profound interest in themes related to Public Health issues and Social Sciences, since my work had led me to understand that solutions to health problems needed an integrated approach with Social Sciences.

This belief led me to join a second degree in Sociology, that I finished with an evaluation of excellent (18/20), and that allowed me to start understanding the role of Science and Innovation in Society, and to establish links between Social and Health Sciences. Over the last 4 years, I have been working at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, specifically with the interdisciplinary group - Social Dynamics, Identities and Action. This work that has been steadily progressing and has resulted in scientific papers, one book chapter and several communications, including my recent publication in an international indexed peer-reviewed journal: Reconnecting Nature and Culture: A Model of Social Decision-making in Innovation.

Now, working as a Post-Doctoral fellow at Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCT-financed fellowship SFRH/BPD/77611/2011) and focusing on social decision-making processes in innovation progression, an object that is transversal to the Sciences in which I have academic and research experience, I am developing a novel interdisciplinary research approach.