In 2017, Joana concluded her Master's degree in Applied Biochemistry from the University of Minho. For her master thesis, Joana joined the Organelle Biogenesis and Homeostasis lab, of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, under the supervision of Professor Pedro Carvalho. Here, Joana worked on the characterisation of the Inner Nuclear Membrane proteome of human cells, using state-of-the-art techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and mass spectometry.

In April 2018, Joana joined the Chromosome Instability and Dynamics laboratory of Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde (i3S) in Porto, Portugal, as a Research Fellow (MSc.) under the supervision of Doctor Jorge Ferreira.

Joana is currently pursuing her PhD in Biomedicine, from the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto (FMUP), after being awarded a FCT 4-year PhD fellowship in 2019.

Her work, developed under the supervision of Doctor Jorge Ferreira (University of Porto) and Doctor Susana Godinho (Barts Cancer Institute/Queen Mary University London), with the title “Spatiotemporal dissection of the mechanical basis of chromosome instability”, focuses on understanding the forces that control centrosome movement and its impact in mitotic fidelity, using high-resolution microscopy coupled with advanced micropatterning techniques and 3D-cell culture models.