Luísa Pinto has graduated in Biochemistry in the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra (FCTUC) in 2004 and is a Member of the National Biochemistry Association since 2003. Luísa started her research work in the Karolinska Institute, where she did an internship during 9 months on the subject of stem cells as a therapeutical tool for Parkinson Disease with Prof. Ernest Arenas, an expert in regenerative therapies for Parkinson's disease. Luísa went then to the Helmholtz Zentrum München, Munich, Germany, a world-leading lab in the area of neurogenesis and stem cells. Here she conducted her PhD research in Neurosciences with a FCT fellowship on the subject of molecular mechanisms regulating neurogenesis in the developing mouse cortex, under the supervision of the highly recognized expert in the stem cells and neurogenesis field, Prof. Dr. Magdalena Goetz. Luísa obtained her PhD degree by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, in 2008 and was accepted as a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Prof. Nuno Sousa, at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), University of Minho, in 2009, for which she was awarded with a FCT fellowship. She was an Assistant Researcher at ICVS from 2013 until 2021. Luísa got a tenure position as Assitant Researcher at ICVS in 2021 and she is the Scientific Coordinator of the thematic line "Brain circuits and neuron-glia adaptations". She is Invited Assistant Professor of the Medical Course at the School of Medicine, University of Minhot since 2009. She is also CEO of the start-up company “BNML – Behavioral & Molecular Lab” of the ICVS since 2012. Luísa is a Member of the Portuguese Society of Neuroscience (SPN) since 2012 and was an Associate Member of EpiGeneSys, a FP7 European Community-funded Network of Excellence from 2013 to 2015. She is also a Co-Founder Member of the European College of NeuroPsychopharmacolgy (ECNP) Thematic Network on Resilience. Since February 2023, she is also member of the Direction of ICVS as elected representative of the team coordinators of the Institute. Luísa Pinto has published 75 peer-reviewed papers with an accumulated impact factor of 491 (average impact factor of 7; ISI h-index=29), including in top journals such as Nature Neuroscience, Neuron , Molecular Psychiatry and Cell Stem Cell. Her work has above 2000 citations. She is currently supervising 6 PhD and 4 MSc students. Moreover, 1 Post-Doc, 12 PhD and 16 Master students already finished their degree under her supervision. Luísa has been honored with the Nature Research Awards for Driving Global Impact: 2019 Brain Sciences; with the highly competitive Portuguese government FCT CEECI position (8% approval rate) in 2020, which funds my salary for 6 years; 1 research prize - Prize of the best PhD performance “Doktorandenpreis des VdFF 2009” in the Helmholtz Zentrum München; with the 1st Prize and Prize of “ Young Enterpreneurs” of the SpinUM organized by TecMinho in 2011 and with the 1st Prize of the 13th edition of the Young Entrepreneur Award sponsored by the Portuguese Association of Young Entrepreneurs (ANJE); has 3 patents. She is frequently invited for peer-reviewing for Journals such as Molecular Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Plos One, Frontiers, British Journal of Pharmacology, Neuropharmacology, Molecular Neurobiology and is now editor of the journals Advances in Biology, Matters, EC Neurology and Academic Editor of PeerJ. She is also Review Editor in Neurogenesis for Frontiers in Neuroscience. Luisa is a project reviewer for the University of Bordeaux Postdoctoral IdEx Programme of Excellence, for the French National Research Agency (ANR) and ERA-NET NEURON on Mental Disorders. She is also frequently invited for teaching lectures and organizes Post-graduation courses such as "Stem Cells Get Pratical: Approaches on stem cell isolation, characterization and differentiation" and "Being a Bio-entrepreneur", School of Health Sciences of the University of Minho. Career breaks: 1- First maternity leave: 08/03/2011 to 05/07/2011 2- Medical leave due to risky pregnancy: from 03/02/2020 to 24/06/2020 3- Second maternity leave: 25/06/2020 to 21/11/2020