Maria Azevedo is a microscopy applications specialist at the Advanced Light Microscopy (ALM) Scientific Platform, where she is responsible for developing applications and providing scientific and technical support to the ALM users. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from ICBAS, Universidade do Porto. A huge part of her Ph.D. work was focused on applying live-cell imaging techniques to understand the biology of oligodendrocytes differentiation.

Maria has extensive and deep experience with various light microscopy techniques, including phase-contrast, wide-field fluorescence, laser scanning confocal, and super-resolution microscopy. She also has experience in image analysis using ImageJ, IMARIS, and Huygens.

Since 2018, at the ALM, she has been involved in developing and optimizing different microscopy tools applied for live sciences. Among it, Maria has been directly involved in launching a home-build light-sheet microscopy (LSFM) system at i3S by implementing custom-designed applications and keeping working on the equipment’s improvement in collaboration with other laboratories focused on the development of open-source equipment for new imaging techniques. 

Maria is also actively involved in the training activities promoted by the platform and in the activities of the Quality Assessment and Reproducibility for Instruments & Images in Light Microscopy (QUAREP-LIM) initiative.