She graduated in Industrial Chemistry from Coimbra University in Portugal. Cecília moved to Sweden to receive her Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Lund University, supervised by Prof. Wennerström. After working for a year in the Norwegian Radium Hospital, she joined Prof. Safinya’s Lab at the University of California in Santa Barbara as a Vetenskapsrådet postdoctoral fellow. Her research interests focus on the characterization and functionalization of lipid materials for cellular delivery. In addition to the New Innovator award, she received the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2016.