Ana C. A. Sousa graduated in Biology from the University of Aveiro in 2001 and completed her Ph.D. in Biology in September 2009 from the same institution. During her M.Sc. and Ph.D., she worked at several foreign institutions including the University of Coruña, Spain, the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG), Switzerland, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan and the Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES), Japan. Her first postdoc was developed between Portugal (University of Aveiro and University of Beira Interior) and Japan (CMES, Ehime University) and focused on exposure assessment of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals. Her second postdoc was developed at CICECO, University of Aveiro, and focused on the toxicological characterization of new ionic liquids-based extraction and purification platforms. Between October 2017 and September 2018, she was a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique—CNRS, France. Upon finishing her contract with CNRS, she moved to Japan as a lecturer of Environmental Toxicology at Hokkaido University. Between January 2019 and March 2021, she was a researcher at CICECO, Aveiro University. In April 2021, she moved to Évora University, Portugal, as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. Since November 2022, she has been an Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, University of Évora.
Prof. Luís Rato completed his LSc degree in 2008. In 2010, he was conferred an MSc degree in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal. In 2015, he completed his Ph.D. in Biomedicine at the Health Sciences Research Center, University of Beira Interior (CICS-UBI), Covilhã, Portugal. His research interests are metabolic modulation of spermatogenesis, male (in)fertility, metabolic disorders (prediabetes, diabetes mellitus), and effects of metabolic diseases on male fertility. During his post-doc fellowship, Luís Rato dedicated his research to the field of natural products by trying to clarify how nutraceuticals and functional foods present in the diet may ameliorate the effects of metabolic diseases in male fertility. More recently, he has also extended his research interests to environmental contaminants (particularly obesogens), exploring their effect on male fertility.
