Latter 2022, I was accepted to do an intership at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris (France). This experience took me to the Health Division on an international organization for Health-related policy making.

I was involved in different projects of the Public Health Team, covering the non-communicable diseases (NCD) area where I was involved in the evaluation of the burden of cancer. Furthermore, I was involved in a project that extended the capabilities of the OECD SPHeP model to embed additional risk factors for cancer, including diet/nutrition intake and air pollution. To this end, I supportted the modellers team, by providing statistical support with data management and analysis related to air pollution.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) is the reference point on drugs and drug addiction information in Europe. Here, I had the chance to do a 8 months trainship at the ICT Unit.

I was initially assigned to work with the head of sector ICT Service Delivery, complementing her role as Project Manager for the ECID project, an important pluri-annual EMCDDA project fostering digital innovation in the areas of collaboration, document and records management.

Soon it became apparent that besides the initial assignment, I was curious to take on other challenges. Thus, I conducted an ICT self-assessment regarding the cybersecurity maturity and preparedeness of the organization using the NIST reference framework and COBIT 19.

Latter on, I was also involved in the Data Foundation Project and on business intelligence metrics, where I was active in presenting new insights on existing unexplored data sources, using BI tools (MS Power BI), data arquitechire designs and concerns on its developments.

During this intership I also had the change to attend the Digital Youth Summit in Bucharest, allowing me to share ideas with multiple stakeholders about the future of digitalization and IT in EU.

I'm deeply grateful for my supervisors Eng. Andrea Classen and Eng. Pedro Ribeiro who gave me the opportunity to do an internship within the organization, integrated me in their team as family and critically guided me with constructive feedback which enhanced my skills and performance on any work done.

In 2020, I participated at the first virtual European Health Forum Gastein Hackathon. My team and I were awarded the Prize and Jury Award for our idea (worth 25k!). Participating in these kinds of events puts our skills to the test. Very quickly, we were committed to each other.

In the span of just 40 hours, our team we developed a sense of shared vision, trust and teamwork that helped us tackle the biggest challenges as we took our idea to the next steps to make it a reality.

Aidemy was born from this journey. I believe that a focus on simplicity and a little plot twist made our idea credible. We understood that in crisis, many face difficulties in admitting they are mentally struggling, often due to stigma. But our mental health is a collective good, and a social responsibility. Our app aimed to train everyday people to become mental health first responders, who are able to recognise warning signs of mental health disorders and provide emergency help for them.

It was a very grateful experience and all other team's participants, the EHFG team, EIT Health, Mentors, and Judges made this hackathon an unforgettable and life changing experience from all points of view!

At the beginning of my residency in Public Health I started taking some online degrees to expand my knowledge on statistics, programming in R, python and data science.
I realized the importance of quality information in clinical practice, the power it has, and thus, I can have by mastering these skills.

Latter on, in 2019, I started a PhD in Health Data Science (Specialty: Health Intelligent Data) at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (Porto, Portugal). My project is mostly a cluster analysis on data quality, entitled “How can multimorbidity impact on hospitalizations clinical and economic outcomes? A case study on asthma”. My project was also part of the EIT Health PhD Label – Ageing at EIT PhD School 2020 (sponsored by European Innovation and Technology)
I highly acknowledged my supervisors Dr Bernardo Sousa Pinto, Dr João Fonseca and Dr Elísio Costa for the patient guidance, encouragement, advice and scientific rigour. I was extremely lucky for this present and highly qualified team. I am also gratefull to Professor Ricardo Cruz Correia to keep challenging me and for the disruptive thinking.

During this time I was envolved as a Visiting Lecturer and Research collaboration at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (Porto, Portugal). I can highlight some of my collaborations in the following fields:

• Introduction to Medical Informatics to PhD Program in Health Data Science (2021-)
• Health Services research to 1st year students of the Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine (2020)
• Population Health (Clinical Epidemiology, Predictive Medicine and Public Health Department) to 1st year students of the Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine (2019)
• Reviewer at International Journal of Data Science and Analytics

Regardless of this, I am always eager to learn, enroll in new couses and challenge myself.

Some other post-graduation courses I did were the following:

• Executive Couse in Project Management (2022) Católica Porto Business School, University of Porto (Porto, Portugal)
• Post-graduation in Information technology Management (2021) Porto Business School, University of Porto (Porto, Portugal)
• Post-graduation in Travel Medicine (2019) Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (Porto, Portugal)
• Short courses Programs
  • Python and Machine Learning Summer School (2021)- Católica Porto Business School (Porto, Portugal)
  • Leading Digital Transformation at MIT (Online, 2020) – sponsored by Santander Becas scholarship
  • H-Impact Program at Ghent University (Belgium, September 2019 – December 2019)
  • Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare - EIT Health Summer School at BioHealth Computing Schools (Archamps, France, July 2019)

After participating in a Summer School in Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship in 2019 (AI4Health), I understood the urgent need to create an environment of digital maturity for innovation in healthcare.
This experience made me realize how deficient our education can be on the topic.
Additionally, this added transversal vision enhanced the possibility of integrating my academic knowledge and practical field work in Public Health and Health Data Science with intra and entrepreneurial skills.

Associating academic knowledge with practical experience encouraged me even more towards enhancing the strength and quality of scientific evidence for health outcomes and research. In fact, I believe learning to monetize academic resources and knowledge in viable market ideas will have huge benefits in how population's true issues and demands are addressed.

After this summer school I joined the EIT Health Alumni Network. At this time I was invited to be a local representative in Oporto, Portugal. Being part of this community instilled a sense of curiosity and purpose in re-shaping the healthcare system. EIT Health Alumni Community is about networking, brimming with ideas, enthusiasm and nervous excitement that keeps inspiring and challenging me to be at my very best in personal and professional life. The amazing and inspiring people I've met in this community reinforces everything I knew about teamwork and the importance of each and every person in a group.

Some of the projects I was involved are:
• (i) Management of live networking email lists, organization of events, minutes drafting, administrative support and other ad-hoc organizational and programmatic work.
• (ii) Leader organization in international events, namely: “Walk2walk”, “Reverse Pitch”, “Rise Up”
• (iii) Facilitator and Speaker at Innovation Days in Oporto, Porto and in Paris, France

I started my Public Health residency in ACES Entre o Douro e Vouga 1. During this time, I had the change to work in local support to health-related public health constraints. I was also deeply involved in COVID-19 case management where I defined and developed an information system for collecting and analyzing data at the local level.

After this I completed an year specializing program in Public Health at the National School of Public Health - specializing Course on Public Health.

Later on I started to work in a regional level, mainly on the management of cancer screening programs. During my work in the Northern Regional Administration in Portugal I was deeply involved in applying business intelligence approaches for cancer screening programs optimization and information systems applied which made me develop a special interest in this area.

Additionally, I worked on data governance for the implementation of an API technology through the health information system for the Prevention and Control of Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance - PPCIRA, currently being a member of the management team of the 2-CIACS project and working group of PPCIRA.

I'm deeply grateful for my supervisor Dr Bernardo Gome and co-supervisor Dr Hugo Monteiro who always believed in me, trusted my habilities and gave me guidance, encouragement, authonomy and freedom to challenge myself.

Transforming healthcare one hope at a time. Hope Care was the first Portuguese Digital Health Services company to combine cutting-edge products and platforms, which allow the provision of technological services in Social Care and Health without barriers.

I met the Team during an event of Microsoft Innovation in Paris. And we just started brimming with ideas right away!

Some of the projects I was involved were regarding data analytics, clinical and medical device regulamentation.

I' ve always been interested and thrilled about research and how can I beable to improve my knowledge. My contribution to scientific community is still starting, but some of my works are listed below.
You can also always check my ORCID

I did my Integrated Master's in Medicine at the Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar , University of Porto (Porto, Portugal), wich I completed with an average of 15/20.

My Master thesis was in Public Health field, using SHARE PROJECT database (WAVE 4) and SPSS for research - entitled "Grip Strength and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in older adults across Europe” – Grade 19/20

During my degree, I managed to work abroad and have some summer experiences!

International Mobility programmes:

• ERASMUS programme in University of Bordeaux - France (3 months, 2016)
• ERASMUS programme in 1st Charles University of Prague - Czech Republic (3 months, 2015)
• FREE MOVER programme in University Vale Itajaí - Brasil (12 months, 2014)

Summer internships with International Federation of Medical Students Association (IFMSA):

• July 2016: Internship Lausanne (Switzerland) - Clinical Internship in Rehabilitation
• July 2013: Internship Vitória (Brasil) - Clinical internship in Dermatology
• August 2012: Internship Tunis (Tunisia) - Research in Pharmacovigilance

I've participated in several organizations as a volunteer.

Those are a cocktail of fruitfull experiences that shaped me both personally and professionally.
Some of them are listed below:

• HL7 Portuguese association (2020-)Associated member with activities in working groups.
• EIT Health Alumni (2019-)Local representative in Porto
• Saúde+Pública (2019)National Newsletter of Public Health Residents, Member in Communication Section
• Porto4Ageing (2018-)Associated member with activities in working groups.
• ANEM Portugal (2015)National summer project of public health. Speeches about the adoption of preventive health measures, namely about the transmission of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
• Medical Association: AEICBAS-UP (2011-2012)Active member of Medical association in Physical Health Department. The responsibilities related with this position were:
  • To promote the practice of physical activity in university students;
  • To organize, coordinate and supervise activities;
  • To initiate and facilitate approved projects for all departments.
• VO.U. – University Volunteer Association (2011-2012) Main activities performed:
  • Fundraising campaign and material regarding the needs overseas;
  • Creation and management of new projects;
  • Office, managing and development work.