Ana Sofia Vaz

Ana Sofia Vaz is a Research Fellow at CIBIO-InBIO, University of Porto, Portugal. She holds a PhD in Biodiversity from the University of Porto (2018) and completed a post-doctoral Juan de la Cierva (Formación) contract at the University of Granada (2019–2021). Her research focuses on conservation culturomics, iEcology, and leveraging digital data to study human-nature interactions, invasive species, climate change, and wildfires. She is the co-Principal Investigator (co-PI) of the INVASIONS research group at CIBIO and chairs the Ecosystem Services Working Group at GEOBON. She leads the FCT-funded ClimateMedia project on climate change monitoring via digital data and coordinates CIBIO’s team in the Horizon Europe SELINA project on natural capital decision-making.

Key projects include ClimateMedia (FCT-funded), SELINA (Horizon Europe), and contributions to global initiatives like ALIENTRADE and SINVAQUA. Her work integrates ecological modeling, remote sensing, and social media analysis to address environmental challenges. She has supervised multiple PhD and Master’s students, focusing on invasion science, ecosystem services, and climate change perceptions.

Her research spans over 30 peer-reviewed articles, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches to biodiversity conservation and environmental governance. She actively participates in international networks, workshops, and conferences, contributing to policy-relevant science at global scales.