Ana Mesquita has a degree in Applied Biology and completed her PhD in Health Sciences in 2008 at the School of Medicine of the University of Minho.

Her main research focus is the neurobiological mechanisms of socio-emotional development in children living in different life contexts. Using a multilevel approach, she seeks to understand how the environment and genetic interaction define behavioral patterns, and their neurobiological substrates. More recently, she has broadened the focus of her research to epigenetic processes, which translate into a more dynamic interaction between genes and the environment and which help to explain how early life experiences “get under our skin”

Before joining ProChild CoLAB, Ana Mesquita spent 13 years at the School of Psychology at the University of Minho, where she was Principal Investigator of several funded projects, having contributed to the development of multidisciplinary research at the interface between genetics, neurosciences and psychology.

She has co-supervised more than 20 master’s theses and 7 doctoral theses, of which 3 are still in progress. Co-author of more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, the vast majority focused on understanding the neurobiological mechanisms associated with the impact of early adversity on the socio-emotional development of children. By joining the Prochild CoLAB, Ana Mesquita also expects that her research will come to have an impact on the way we (do not yet) look at the importance of early childhood.

Ana Mesquita is the mother of two children, with whom she learns every day. It is with his family and friends that he likes to travel and share good times.