Joana Bastos Barbosa is a post-doctoral researcher at ESB-UCP, working with Clostridioides difficile and bioactive substances. She completed her graduate studies in microbiology in 2004 and her Ph.D. in biotechnology (with a specialization in microbiology) in 2015 at ESB-UCP. She is the author of 41 scientific papers indexed to Scopus (H-Index 18; 882 citations), 7 chapters in books, 3 proceedings in meetings, 4 oral communications, and more than 50 poster communications in scientific symposiums. Currently, she is the supervisor/co-supervisor of several undergraduate students and M.Sc. and Ph.D. ongoing theses. Her main research interests focus on probiotics and biopreservatives, the microbiological characterization of traditional products, virulence, and the resistance mechanisms of food pathogens.