Catarina Barbosa Matos received her BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Minho, Portugal in 2013. Catarina developed her Master’s thesis at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), University of Minho, supervised by Sandra Costa, where she studied the interactions between lung-derived macrophages and epithelial cells during lung development.

Determined to follow her curiosity and passion for lung immunity, Catarina secured her own doctoral fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) to pursue a PhD under the supervision of Sandra Costa and Agostinho Carvalho, at the ICVS. She explored the mechanisms by which c-Met-expressing immune cells influence the progression of pulmonary fibrosis and the antifungal immune response against lung infection by Aspergillus fumigatus.

In January 2025, Catarina joined the Cancer Dormancy & Immunity Laboratory at the Champalimaud Foundation as a postdoctoral researcher, where she aims to leverage her strong background in tissue immunity to elucidate how tissue-specific immune responses shape the dissemination and metastatic outgrowth of breast cancer cells in distant sites.