Nataliya Sakharova is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Processes (CEMMPRE) of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. She obtained her PhD degree in Physical and Mathematical Sciences (Solid State Physics) at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1999. In 2018, she received a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Coimbra. Her areas of scientific activity relate to the mechanical properties of bulk materials and thin films: modelling and numerical simulation, inverse analysis, and experimental aspects; experimental mechanical characterization of materials: mechanical tests and structural studies by different techniques; mechanical properties of nanomaterials: modelling and experimental aspects; and metal forming: fundamental aspects, modelling, constitutive laws, inverse analysis, numerical simulation, and applications. Her research interests are related to nanohardness tests on film/substrate composite materials with the aim of developing modelling and reverse analysis procedures applied to the experimental characterization of materials by depth-sensing indentation techniques; identifying the parameters of plastic constitutive models used in sheet metal forming numerical simulations; assessing the microstructural behaviour of polycrystalline metal sheets subjected to different straining conditions; and conducting numerical modelling of the mechanical behaviour of carbon nanotubes.