Maria F Duarte

Maria F. Duarte graduated in Biochemistry from University of Porto (2001), and obtained her PhD degree in Health Sciences from University of Minho (May 2006), with all the laboratory work done at Maine Medical Center Research Institute, United States, under supervision of Thomas Maciag. After holding a pos-doctoral position at University of Minho, for 2 years, M. Duarte started to work as an independent researcher at CEBAL, Beja, Portugal in 2008. From 2010 to August 2013, MF Duarte joined CICECO/University of Aveiro, participating in the Sustainability and Biomaterials research line. And more recently, since December 2016 participates as integrated member at Mediterranean Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (ICAAM) research unit, from University of Evora. During her research career M. Duarte has authored or co-authored 48 papers in peer-reviewed international journals (of these, 11 were published as senior or corresponding author), two book chapter, and 1 international patent. M Duarte has given 17 invited oral presentations, with an h-index of 16, with 839 citations, with an accumulated IF of 126,438, of these, Journal of Cell Science, Stem Cells and Molecular Biology of the Cell belong to Q1SJR quartile for cell biology category, and Industrial Crops and Products and Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry belong to Q1 quartile for agriculture and biological sciences. M. Duarte served as a reviewer for few journals, with two in the field of agriculture and residues valorization. She was participated in 6 PhD defense committees, 4 of them as principal referee, and was also participated as national project evaluator within the topic of agro-industry subproducts valorization, as solicited by the National Innovation Agency. She was part of the organizing team of several meetings, namely the Iberian Meetings on Aromatic and Medicinal Plants, in 2012, and NewVal – New valorization strategies for agro-industrial residues, in 2015, those two meetings gathered over 600 researchers and producers. M Duarte coordinates the Bioactive Compounds Research Group, at CEBAL (http://www.cebal.pt/index.php/pt/investigacao/compostos-bioativos), being responsible for several research projects within different agro- and forestry-based-industry raw materials and residues, such as Eucalyptus spp bark, Cynara cardunculus, Cistus ladanifer, pomegranate peel, plum pulp and peel, table-olives, olive oil, olive pomace residue (RefinOlea projet which was the 2013 winner project of the Green Project Awards, in Research & development category, and in 2014 the winner of Innovation Award of EBAEpis, within the European Business Awards for the Environment). With all the projects, in which M Duarte is highly involved, since 2008 until now, she raised over 2.200.000,00€ funding for CEBAL. In 2012, M Duarte, as principal investigator, got a FCT research grant, aiming new valorization strategies for Eucalyptus spp. bark extracts (Evaluation of this research project is available on FCT portal: ref. PTDC/AGR-FOR/3187/2012). This particularly work merges the work she has been developing since 2010, representing a quite strong independent research line within her research group. In 2015, Maria F. Duarte got, as responsible investigator, two important founding sources for her research group. One relates to a research grant within the topic of Cynara cardunculus economic valorization and its biotechnological applications (ALT20-03-0145-FEDER-000038), and the second one, a technology transfer contract within membrane process technology, and their application to agro-industries. (ALT20-03-0246-FEDER-000003). Maria F. Duarte has been, for the last 24 months actively involved in tech transfer actions, and a strong and closer interaction with stakeholders, within the theme water value, its treatment and valorization. She is currently supervising or co-supervising 2 post-doctoral fellow, 3 PhD students, and 5 research fellows. In the past M. Duarte supervised research fellows, 6 Masters students, 2PhD student, and 1 post-doctoral fellow.