Vanessa Ferreira holds a degree in Genetics and Biotechnology from the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD) and a Master degree in Technologic, Comparative and Molecular Genetics from the same institution. After two years as a Research Fellow at UTAD, working on the molecular characterization of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.), she got a PhD Fellowship from the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT). Her PhD studies focused on the molecular mechanisms behind grapevine berry skin color and were carried out at UTAD and at the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP/ UPM-INIA) in Madrid, Spain. In November 2018 she joined the Reto Gassmann and Ana Carvalho's research team as a Lab Manager.