About me

Questions and ideas: two powerful words. Since I was a child, I have been asking a lot. I used to ask myself if I was being annoying with my questions, but what I really needed was time to understand that questions were the beginning of great advances and discoveries. Later, I decided that I would like to develop and share ideas that were worth it. I have always been a curious human being, hungry for knowledge. I took all this existential crisis too seriously and decided to be an astronomer.

Now I am an astrophysicist trying to discover the mysteries of the cosmos. More specifically, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy - Durham University. My main goal is to understand how galaxy clusters formed and evolved, I am interested in galaxy formation and evolution, AGN and the large-scale Universe.

I'm also deeply involved with social media science outreach projects because science must be spread! Knowledge must be democratised and not be in the hands of a few. I try to give people astronomical content and beautiful wallpapers, but not only that, I try to instigate critical thinking. I must admit I have fun doing it, and I learn a lot from people when talking to them about the beauty of the Universe.

I did my undergraduate course at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Observatório do Valongo) and my masters at Universidade de São Paulo (Instituto de Astronomia Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas). After that, I moved to the UK to do my PhD at the University of Nottingham. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Durham University. If you want to know more about my academic career, you can go to the CV tab.

About me: Sobre

Not only an astrophysicist...

I love science, but I am much more than just a scientist! Here I will list a few things that are part of who I am.

BRAZILIAN BEACHES

This is a picture of the city where I was born, it is called Niteroi and it is located at Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Since I was born, I am used to go to the beach. I love the feeling of the sand in my feet and the sounds of the waves. If you have never been in Brazil, you should! It is a very beautiful place.

TRAVEL

The best thing sometimes is to go beyond the shores and see what happens! I like learning from different cultures, different languages and try various types food. This picture in particular has a funny story behind it. I was supposed to go to the Netherlands but there was a rail strike and me and my friend "got stuck" in a city called Antwerp in Belgium. It was not on the plan to stop there, but we were already there and decided to walk around and found this amazing medieval fortress called the Het Steen! In the end, getting lost was a great inconvenience!

CUTE ANIMALS

Watching the squirrels and rabbits running in the campus is one of my favourite hobbies. I like to sit and observe nature. Specially during Spring that there are a lot of cute animals everywhere. I also enjoy watching funny videos of cats and dogs on Instagram and Tiktok.

COFFEE

I honestly love coffee! And I like it in many different ways: hot, cold, without sugar, with sugar, in the form of cappuccino, mocha, frappé etc. I also like random things with a coffee flavour, such as ice cream and chocolate. I think at this point you understand: I REALLY like coffee.

PROUD LATIN BISEXUAL WOMAN

As a Latin woman living in another country, I have experienced many xenophobic situations. Sometimes they are microaggressions that go unnoticed by most. I am also bisexual, and I am constantly being attacked by homophobic people on the internet when I talk about LGBT+ rights. However, now I don't hide myself anymore and I speak out. I want to make the world a better place to the next generations and I will keep fighting for a more equal world in which every human being will be respected.

MUSIC

Music is my passion. The Interstellar soundtrack is a great one, I listen to it while I work. By the way, if you never watched the movie, it is really good too! And if you want to try the soundtrack by yourself, start with S.T.A.Y. of Hans Zimmer. Another good soundtrack is the one of Shrek 2. I also enjoy playing guitar and piano (but I am a little rusty). Still about music, I love dancing! If I had time I would practice a hundred types of dances, but unfortunately we only live ~10² years in the best case.

NARUTO

I love anime, my favourite one is Naruto. The anime is extremely creative and there are a lot of "overcoming stories". It has the vibes of "you can do it, we believe in you". Because of that, this anime was really important in a phase of my life that I could not believe in myself. A random fact is that I thanked Naruto in my masters dissertation and I also cited Rock Lee (a character of the anime):

"A hero is not the one who never falls. He is the one that who gets up, again and again, never losing sight of his dreams."

MARIO KART & DnD

Mario Kart Tour and Dungeons and Dragons (known as DnD) are my favourite games, but I also like RPGs in general. If you like these games, let me know, we can play them together!

And of course I would have a gallery for Curie (my cat)! She was named after Marie Curie, who won the Physics and Chemistry Nobel Prizes. She has her own Instagram and Tiktok.

I probably forget something, but you can find more about me if you contact me. You can also follow me on social media and find me on this link.