Joana L. Rodrigues is a Faculty Researcher at the Centre of Biological Engineering and an Invited Assistant Professor at the Biological Engineering Department of the University of Minho since 2019. She received her MSc in biological engineering in 2010 and her PhD in Bioengineering Systems (MIT-Portugal Program) in 2014 from the University of Minho. During her PhD, she was a visiting student for one year at the Prather Lab at the Chemical Engineering Department at MIT, where she worked on the design and construction of a biosynthetic pathway for the production of curcuminoids in E. coli. Her research interests include the use of synthetic biology tools to construct biosynthetic pathways for the production of therapeutic and industrially relevant compounds.