Paula Tamagnini is currently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto (FCUP), Vice-Director of IBMC - Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology and member of the Board of Directors of i3S – Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, as well as leader of the Group Bioengineering and Synthetic Microbiology at the i3S/IBMC. Previously, she was Vice-Head of the Department of Biology (2010-2018), and member of the Scientific Council (2014-2018) at FCUP. P. Tamagnini graduated in Biology at the University of Porto in 1986, but performed most of the experimental work leading to her PhD at the Department of Physiological Botany, Uppsala University – Sweden She presented her thesis “Physiological and molecular characterization of hydrogenases in Nostoc and other cyanobacteria” at FCUP in 1999. At the time, she became Assistant Professor at FCUP and started to establish herself as an independent researcher at IBMC. In 2002, joined the Cellular and Applied Microbiology group led by Professor Pedro Moradas-Ferreira where she integrated the research team “Bioproducts and Bioremediation” and got her first project approved as PI. She has been PI in 8 national projects, PI of participating institution in an ITN, a FP7, a FP6 and a national project, as well as team member in 11 other. She participated in several Bi-lateral Actions (with Spain, France, Italy, UK and Germany) and organized or been in the Scientific Committee of several international meetings. Moreover, P. Tamagnini supervised 10 post-doctoral fellows, 7 PhD students, more than 20 MScs and several ERAMUS/mobility students (e.g. Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and The Netherlands) and is currently supervising several others. P. Tamagnini is Associate Editor for BMC Microbiology, is member of the International Scientific Committee for the European Workshop on the Molecular Biology of Cyanobacteria, was a member of the International Scientific Committee for the Symposia on Phototrophic Prokaryotes, participated in two ERASynBIO strategic conferences, and was National Delegate in two EU COST Networks. Along the years, she made important contributions on the field of physiology and molecular biology of cyanobacteria, and published over 65 papers in ISI indexed journals and several book chapters. She has a European patent granted and two other patents pending. She has also been actively contributing to the public communication of science, notably on the Synthetic Biology area.