Get to know... Paula Oliveira

Paula A. Oliveira is a Full Professor at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), where she teaches Pharmacology, Therapeutics, Animal Experimentation and Toxicology. She is a researcher at CITAB and has spent the past 30 years investigating the impact of lifestyle factors (sedentary behaviour vs. physical exercise) and natural compound extracts on the progression of oncological and chronic diseases, using animal models. Her work aims to promote healthy lifestyle habits, encourage the consumption of beneficial foods, and foster the use and valorisation of natural products and by-products. 

She has established strong collaborations with leading national and international research centres, resulting in the funding of numerous projects and in the supervision of several doctoral theses. Her scientific output includes around 300 publications in international journals and one patent. 

More recently, she introduced the invertebrate model Eisenia fetida at UTAD as an alternative research tool in Toxicology and Pharmacology, extending its application to the valorisation of by-products from the wine and livestock industries.

Paula A. Oliveira regularly evaluates projects for international funding agencies, has served on multiple panels of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), and is a member of the editorial board of several scientific journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science.