With a university degree in Biochemistry, Maria dedicated the initial 10 years of her career to Bone Regeneration and Cancer as a researcher and a PhD at Imperial College London. In 2014, as a recent mother, contributing to building a better future for us all became a strong commitment for her. Education was the preferred path. Maria had known about Teach For All for several years. From London to Madrid, different friends had shown both Maria and Pedro that solving the world’s most complex problems requires a lot more than personal commitment. It requires professionalism, rigor, talent, and collective effort. From 2015 to early 2019 Maria worked with Pedro to launch Teach For Portugal. They contextualized the Teach For All model to the Portuguese education system, built the business plans and necessary partnerships across both the private and public sectors, developed the recruitment and training programs, and built the team to launch. Since then, Maria has served as Head of Recruitment, Head of Training, Head of Program and Strategy and currently as Co-CEO. Under Maria and Pedro’s leadership, Teach For Portugal is already one of the most relevant Education NGOs in Portugal and is implementing an ambition scale plan that will allow them to reach the 15% most disadvantaged elementary schools in the country until 2030. Additionally, Maria serves as a consultant at the SEDES Observatory for Education since 2023. Maria is also a proud mother of Tiago, Xavier and Maria Miguel.