SOFIA FERNANDES
Associate Researcher
BIOGRAPHY
Sofia Rita Cardoso Fernandes was born in Lisbon on the 19th July 1976. After completing high school, she completed a Bsc. degree in Physics in 2001, in the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL). Soon after, she completed a MSc. in Astronomy and Astrophysics of the same college in 2003, under a scholarship from a project PESO/P/PRO/40154/2000 “The Nearest Planet Nurseries”, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT).
With a growing interest in health sciences, especially regarding to the study of neuromotor dysfunctions, she completed a BSc. in Physiotherapy in 2009 in the Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Lisboa (ESTeSL). During her working experience as a physiotherapist, she found frequently cases of neurodegenerative dysfunctions and diseases, which contributed to a growing need to understand more how to act to prevent or delay the onset of symptoms related with these diseases. This motivation led her to enroll in the Doctoral Program in Neurosciences of the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa (FMUL) in 2013. Her training in Physics and Physiotherapy was the main motivation for her PhD research project: the study of non-invasive application of direct currents for neuromodulation of neural networks of the spinal cord. Since 2015, she is under a FCT scholarship for a research project under the scope of her PhD project, which is being developed at the Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering (IBEB), in collaboration with the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM).
