She holds a degree in Chemical Engineering (Major in Biotechnology) and a PhD in Biotechnology from Instituto Superior Técnico. Cecília has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge and at the Catholic University of America, a Post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology (University of Cambridge) and at INESC-MN (Lisbon, Portugal). Cecília´s group is dedicated to the design and discovery of peptidomimetics with biological or synthetic backbones, and to the development of functional materials, which together find applications in Bioseparation, Biocatalysis, Sensing & Diagnostics, and Nanomedicine.Cecília has been the recipient of several national and international awards and has been recently awarded with a Starting Grant from the European Research Council.