She received her PhD in 2003 in Electrical Engineering in the University of Aveiro (with a 7 months stay in Rice University in 2000 and 2001). She joined the Department of Computer Science of the University of Porto between 2002 and 2004, and she was a Guest Faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, USA, in August 2008, where she performed Faculty Exchange in 2010/2011.