Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS-UL) and Professor at ISCTE-IUL. In 2016, she received the award for best doctoral thesis from the Portuguese Political Science Association (2014-2016) for her research Explaining Party System Institutionalisation in Africa: From a Broad Comparison to a Focus on Mozambique and Zambia. Her research interests include political parties and party systems, democratisation, institutions and political attitudes in new democracies, with a focus on Africa. Her articles have been published in journals such as Parliamentary Affairs, Electoral Studies, Acta Politica, South European Society and Politics, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Análise Social; and she has written book chapters for publishers such as Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, Almedina and Routledge.