Team

Visual anthropologist and documentary filmmaker. She holds a PhD in Human Rights in Contemporary Societies (CES/III, 2019), Master in Cultural Psychiatry (FMUC, 2011). She is developing a post-doctoral project entitled ENGAGE – Promoting gender equality and social justice through transmedia storytelling social science communication. Researcher of the UnCover project – Sexual violence in Portuguese media landscapes (2023-2026). She participated in national (Ouvir Vozes, MyGender, Equal.STEAM) and European (CILIA LGBTQI + and KINDER) projects as a researcher and consultant. Guest lecturer on masters and doctorates in the areas of (mental) health, media and communication and contemporary studies. She organizes advanced training for postgraduate students and early-career researchers in mental health in academia and social science communication and regularly promotes outreach activities for different non-academic audiences.

Maria João Faustino holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where she researched the heteronormalization of anal sex in the heterosexual context and its respective coercive dynamics. She has done research on sexual violence, gender dynamics and media representations. She has developed the topic of sexual consent from a critical perspective in scientific publications and the media. She has collaborated with feminist associations and support for victim-survivors of sexual violence. She has collaborated on projects on image-based sexual violence and intimate partner violence.

Inês Amaral is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Coimbra. Holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from the University of Minho. She is an integrated researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, where she is a member of the Ethics Committee and the Masculinidades.pt Observatory, and a collaborating researcher at the Center for Communication and Society Studies at the University of Minho. She has carried out research on sociability in digital social networks; participation and social media; feminist media studies; masculinities; gender and media; media and digital literacy; technologies and active ageing; audiences and media consumption in the digital era; disinformation. She is the PI of the project "MyGender - Mediated practices of young adults: promoting gender justice in and through mobile applications" (PTDC/COM-CSS/5947/2020), and co-PI of the project "MediaTrust.Lab - Media Laboratory Councils for Civic Confidence and Literacy" (PTDC/COM-JOR/3866/2020). She is part of the “YouNDigital – Young People, News and Digital Citizenship” (PTDC / COM-OUT / 0243/2021) and “UnCoveR – Sexual violence in Portuguese media landscapes” (2022.03964.PTDC) teams. She has published in journals such as Social Media + Society, International Journal of Communication, European Journal of Women's Studies, Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences, Media Studies and European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, and in collections such as Religion, Gender, and Populism in the Mediterranean (2024), The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence (Routledge, 2023), The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sexuality and Culture (Routledge, 2021), Digital Media (McGraw-Hill, 2021), The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society (Sage, 2020) and The Future of Audiences (Palgrave, 2018). A feminist activist, she has been involved with several social movements for gender equality, the right to gender self-determination and the fight for human rights.

Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, where she teaches the Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Journalism and Communication and the PhDs in Communication Sciences and Feminist Studies. She is a researcher at the Center for Social Studies, where she has carried out research on media, gender and public space. She also collaborates, as a researcher, with the Communication Institute of Universidade Nova and the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Coimbra. With a PhD in Communication Sciences, she is coordinator of the Working Group on Gender and Sexualities of the Portuguese Association of Communication Sciences, is a member of the General Assembly of the Portuguese Association of Women's Studies and a member of the Council of Europe's expert committee on violence against women and girls facilitated by technology. Since 2019, she has been the national coordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project.

Feminist, mother and Assistant Researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra (CES-UC), she co-coordinates the Masculinidades.pt Observatory and has worked for over 15 years on projects on International Relations, feminism, urban violence, masculinities and violence prevention with a relevant impact on the production of contributions to public programs and policies on gender equality and masculinities.

Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho is a junior researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra. Within the scope of CES, he was part of the Decode/M project team where he facilitated the thematic area on "Populism and Extreme Masculinities" and actively participated in the core study and in the thematic areas "MeToo" and "Fatherhood, Domestic Roles and Care". He is currently a member of the research project UnCover-Sexual Violence in the Portuguese Media Landscape. Since September 2023 he has been part of Observatório Masculinidades.pt, where he is the Observatory's communications coordinator and member of the research team of the EMiNC project (Male Involvement in Care Initiatives). Since February 2017, he has been a Guest Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra.

Daniela Sofia Neto holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Sociology from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra. She is currently a PhD candidate in Sociology at the same institution and her project consists of continuing the research started in her master's degree, intending to analyze the social representations of students at the University of Coimbra in relation to sexual harassment since the 1960s. The doctoral thesis is financed through the Foundation for Science and Technology and its host entity is the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. As a Junior Researcher, she was part of the project "HOU$ING: Financialization of housing in Portugal in the 21st century: Social representations, practices and political implications" (2022-2023) and is currently a member of the UnCover - Sexual violence in Portuguese mediascape project team, at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra.

Madalena Duarte is a Sociologist, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra, and Researcher at the Center for Social Studies.
Coordinator of the Doctoral Program in Feminist Studies (FLUC / CES).
Her research work has covered two analytical lines: the sociology of law; and violence against women, with a focus on domestic violence and human trafficking. She has published several articles and done presentations on these topics at national and international conferences. Her latest publication is the book O Papel do Direito e dos Tribunais na Violência Contra as Mulheres, published by Afrontamento, in 2023.

MARTA ARAÚJO (PhD, University of London, Institute of Education, School Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, 2003) is Principal Researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra (CES). Her research work has covered two complementary lines: i) public and school history, focusing on narratives about (anti-)colonialism and slavery; ii) public policies, political discourse and ethnic-racial equality. Marta Araújo is Vice-President of the CES Scientific Council and a professor at doctoral level. She was a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN) at the University of Helsinki. She is part of the Observatory of Education and Training Policies (CeiED / CES) and the Education and Citizen Science Working Group (CES). He is a member of the Editorial Board of publications on sociology, 'race' and education in Brazil, the United States, Great Britain and Portugal and has published internationally in highly reputed journals (e.g. British Journal of Sociology of Education, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Patterns of Prejudice and 'Race', Ethnicity and Education). Marta Araújo has acted as an academic consultant on ethnic-racial discrimination and equality and participated in expert meetings at national and international level. She has also been actively involved in outreach activities.

Teresa Almeida Cravo is a Researcher at the Center for Social Studies, in Thematic Line 3: Europe and the Global South - heritage and dialogue, and Associate Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra. She is currently the coordinator of the FEUC/CES Doctoral Program in International Relations-International Politics and Conflict Resolution. She is part of the Observatory on Masculinities at CES. She completed her PhD in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on critical studies on peace and violence, security, development, global interventionism and foreign policy, particularly in the context of Portuguese-speaking countries. Her work uses the post-structuralist theoretical framework to discuss discourses and representations, and their implications for international politics.

Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Évora. Researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, since 2008, where she was also a junior researcher between 2005 and 2007. Currently she is integrated in research line 3 and member of the Observatory of Masculinities. She was co-coordinator of the Center for Humanities, Migrations and Peace Studies between 2016 and 2019. She was a Guest Assistant Professor of the Master's in African Studies, at ISCTE-IUL (2017-2019). With a PhD in International Relations from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (2014), she received, in 2015, the CES Prize for Young Portuguese-Speaking Social Scientists for her doctoral thesis. She also completed a master's degree in African Studies (2007), at ISCTE-IUL, and holds a degree in International Relations from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (2002). Since 2005, she has worked on research projects in the field of International Relations, particularly in the area of Peace Studies. In addition to Guinea-Bissau and El Salvador, countries where she concentrated most of her research, she also collaborated on research projects research in Portugal and Mozambique. Furthermore, she has collaborated with civil society organizations and international organizations in carrying out studies, training and cooperation aimed at understanding and reducing various expressions of violence.

Rita Santos is a researcher at the Center for Social Studies. She has worked on ten research projects in the fields of Feminism, International Relations and Security Studies; violence, gender and small arms; Women, Peace and Security agenda; otherness and media and political representations of migrants, refugees and people of African descent; and gender equality and development cooperation. He also participated in and/or coordinated studies and training for think tanks and inter/national NGOs such as AKTO (Portugal), NOREF (Norway), SWEFOR (Sweden), Promundo-USA (now Equimundo) and carried out evaluation work and support for the development of public policies for Instituto Promundo (Brazil), Plataforma Portuguesa das NGDOs, and Instituto Camões (Portugal). Her research has focused attention on sexual violence in the context of international relations, international law, and the media. Among his publications in this area are the following scientific articles: Santos, Rita; Santos, Sofia J (2021), "Covid-19 pandemic: the reproduction and contestation of securitization of asylum seekers, immigrants and Afro-descendants in the Portuguese media", From the European South, 9, 47-68; Santos, Rita ; Roque, Sílvia; Moura, Tatiana (2013), "Missed Connections: Representations of Gender, (Armed) Violence and Security in Resolution 1325", RCCS Annual Review, 5, 3-31.

Fabrice Schurmans, born in Liège, with a PhD from the University of Coimbra, is a researcher at the Center for Social Studies. His publications focus on post-colonial literature from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective and post-colonial theoretical issues (e.g. translation, border, identity). He published two books, Michel de Ghelderode. Un tragique de l’identité (2011) and The Tragic of the Post-colonial State. Pius Ngandu Nkashama, Sony Labou Tansi, Pepetela (2014), as well as articles, chapters, dictionary entries and reviews. He has published dozens of short stories and novels in Belgium, Canada, Haiti, France and Switzerland.

Project Manager at the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra. She previously held project management and advisory roles at CEsA - ISEG/ULisboa. She carried out tasks related to the submission of applications, financial and administrative management of research projects and financing for research units and bilateral cooperation projects. She organized and supported the organization of almost a hundred institutional events (seminars, congresses, workshops, among others). She holds a degree in International Relations from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and a master's degree in Development and International Cooperation from the Higher Institute of Economics and Management of the University of Lisbon (ISEG/ULisboa). She completed specializations in Diplomatic Theories and Practices and General Business Management, from Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Her main areas of interest are public aid and international cooperation for development, and the management of science and organizations.

Ângelo Fernandes é o fundador da Quebrar o Silêncio — a primeira associação portuguesa de apoio especializado para homens e rapazes sobreviventes de violência sexual — e autor do livro De Que Falamos Quando Falamos de Violência Sexual Contra Crianças?, um guia dirigido a pais, mães e pessoas cuidadoras com orientações para a prevenção do abuso sexual de crianças. Além do apoio prestado aos homens sobreviventes na Quebrar o Silêncio, trabalha no sentido de informar e sensibilizar o público em geral sobre violência sexual, especificamente contra homens e rapazes, contribuindo para a erradicação de mitos e crenças sobre abuso sexual e para a desconstrução de estereótipos de género. Realiza ações de formação sobre violência sexual para profissionais de diversas áreas e estudantes universitários, e dinamiza workshops para pais, mães e pessoas cuidadoras para promover a prevenção da violência sexual contra crianças. Escreve sobre violência sexual para o Sapo24 e outros meios de comunicação.

Carla Cerqueira holds a PhD in Communication Sciences – specialization in Communication Psychology from the University of Minho. She is currently an Associate Professor at Universidade Lusófona, coordinator of the PhD in Communication and Activism and an integrated researcher at CICANT – Center for Research in Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies. Her research interests include gender, feminisms, intersectionality, NGOs, activism, digital citizenship and media. She is part of several national and international research projects as a researcher and consultant; She is the main researcher of the project “FEMglocal – glocal feminist movements: interactions and contradictions”, funded by FCT (PTDC / COM-CSS / 4049/2021). She is the coordinator of the Research and Policy Committee of GAMAG – Global Alliance on Media and Gender. She is part of the board of directors of APEM – Portuguese Association for Women's Studies and is a member of the ECREA Ethics Committee. She is a member of the RTP Opinion Council. She is an activist in several associations and civil society groups linked to human rights and gender equality.

Dubravka Žarkov earned her BA in Sociology at the University of Belgrade, and her MA (at International Institute of Social Studies – ISS, The Hague) and PhD (at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) both in the Netherlands. There she taught women’s studies, war and media studies, and research methodology courses for almost twenty years, and retired as Associate Professor in December 2018. Her main research interests are media representations of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in the context of war and violence. Since 2014 Dubravka has been co-editor of European Journal of Women’s Studies, and in 2017 together with Kathy Davis she edited a virtual special issue Intersectionality – A Retrospective. Though retired, Dubravka remains an associate of the Centre for the Study of Social Difference (Columbia University, New York, USA); Centro de Estudos Sociais, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal;​ and the Social Cultural Research / Gender & Diversity section (​Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands).

Gary Barker, PhD, has been a global voice in engaging men and boys in advancing gender equality, gender justice and positive masculinities for three decades. He is the CEO and co-founder of Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice (formerly Promundo-US), a major contributor to international activism on male allyship in gender equality. He was the first Executive Director of Instituto Promundo in Brazil and led its pioneering work on healthy masculinities. He is co-founder of MenCare, a global campaign in more than 50 countries to promote men’s involvement as caregivers, and co-founder of MenEngage, a global alliance of more than 700 NGOs. He co-created the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), the largest survey of men’s attitudes and behaviors related to violence, fatherhood, and gender equality. He leads Equimundo’s State of the World’s Fathers reports, which has become a major advocacy platform for the global care economy. He has coordinated Equimundo’s partnerships in conflict-affected settings including work on community-based trauma support and restorative justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Balkans, the US and Brazil. He advises the UN, the World Bank, national governments, international foundations and corporations on strategies to engage men and boys in promoting gender equality. In 2017 he was named by Apolitical as one of the 20 most influential people in gender policy worldwide. He is an Ashoka Fellow and received the Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices for his work to engage men for gender equality. He holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology and a Research Affiliate position at the Center for Social Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal. He lived nearly 20 years in Latin America and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

Isabel Ventura is a researcher at the Research Group in Studies on Women, Society and Culture, at the Center for Migration Studies and Intercultural Relations, Universidade Aberta. She is a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Porto, where she coordinates a master's seminar on Law and Sexual Crimes, and a guest adjunct professor at the Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa. She has a PhD in sociology from the University of Minho, with research on sexual violence and justice, which won the APAV Research Award 2016 and the Maria Lamas Award 2018. She is the author of the books 'Medusa no Palácio da Justiça ou Uma História da Violência Sexual' and 'The First Women Reporters: Portugal in the 60s and 70s', both published by Tinta-da-China.

Karen Boyle is a Professor of Feminist Media Studies and Head of Department of Humanities at Strathclyde. Her research has long focused on questions of violence, gender, and representation. She has recently co-edited (with Susan Berridge) the Routledge Companion to Gender, Media, and Violence (2023) and a second, expanded edition of #MeToo and Feminism: Weinstein and Beyond will be published by Palgrave late in 2024. Earlier publications include Media and Violence: Gendering the Debate (Sage 2005) and, as editor, Everyday Pornography (Routledge 2010). She has recently led a BA/Leverhulme research project on the use of trigger warnings in arts, humanities and social sciences (Trigger Warnings | University of Strathclyde) and has worked with Pass the Mic to improve the representation of women of colour in Scotland's news media (Pass the Mic (scottishinsight.ac.uk).

Kirsten’s current research investigates conflict-related sexual violence in international criminal law and transitional justice. She has worked on policy and practice in this area with NGOs, governments, and the UN. Her recent book, The Justice of Humans: Subject, Society, and Sexual Violence in International Criminal Justice draws on her European Research Council projects, The Gender of Justice, and TRANSFORM. Kirsten is a member of the Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict international research group. Kirsten’s research interests include feminist social theory, sociology of law, feminist and socio-legal methodology, with a focus upon concepts and practices of social justice. Kirsten co-directs the Sociology Unit for Global Justice and convenes the Gender of Justice research group. She has been a visiting scholar at Sciences Po, Lund University, and UC Berkeley. Kirsten previously taught sociology at Brunel University, and practised as a commercial litigation lawyer.

Sonia Núñez Puente is Professor of Media and Communications at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain). She has led research projects in the areas of digital feminist activism, gender representations and Cultural Studies. She has been Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen (UK) and professor at Vanderbilt University (USA). Likewise, she has been Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge (UK) and at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany), among other appointments.

Tina Askanius is professor in media and communication studies at the School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University and affiliated researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm and Södertörn University. Her research broadly concerns the interplay between social movements and digital media and spans topics such as media practices of social justice movements, and the role of online media in the mobilisation of far-right extremism and white supremacist movements including the neo-Nazi movement in Sweden. As part of a series of international research projects in the field, she is currently working on questions related to the circulation and normalization of extremist narratives in areas related to migration, gender, climate change and public health (OppAttune, Horizon Europe 2023-2025) and online discourse at the intersections of far-right extremism, gender and violent misogyny in digital environments (Networked misogyny in Sweden, Germany and Russia: articulations, intersections and transnational flows, ÖSS 2024-2026).

Bruno Adão is a Labor Inspector at the Authority for Working Conditions (ACT/MTSSS). Previously he was a Lawyer (2007-2021), and Legal Advisor to the Ministry of National Defense (MDN) (2009-2011). He participated as a consultant for ethical-legal issues in the research project ‘Online violence against women: preventing and combating misogyny and violence in a digital context based on the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic’ (2020-2022), funded by FCT (Proj. n.058 – Gender Research4Covid-19). He holds a degree in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra (1999-2004).