Studied German and English at the Universities of Aveiro, Essen and Innsbruck. She completed her Master's Degree in cognitive linguistics in 2001 and received her Doctoral Degree in German language and literature from the Catholic University of Portugal in 2008. Between 2006 and 2009, she was visiting scholar at the Center for Semiotics of Aarhus University, and at the Department of Cognitive Science of Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, USA. In 2006, she joined the Research Center for Communication and Culture Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon, where she is currently senior researcher in the research line Culture, Translation and Cognition. She is Professor of Languages and Linguistics at the same university.