Sofia Santos graduated in Environmental Engineering in 2018 from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), where she focused her master's thesis on the development of magnetic nanoparticles for water disinfection for human consumption.

In 2019, she joined the InTreat project as a research fellow, and in April 2021, she began her doctoral studies with a FCT scholarship under the theme “Removal of organic and inorganic compounds from water in continuous catalytic systems.”

Her PhD research focused on developing an innovative technology capable of simultaneously degrading and converting organic and inorganic species present in water, with a strong emphasis on the design of novel macrostructured catalysts tailored for integration into continuous reaction systems to aid both reactions performed in the integrated treatment. This work resulted in the submission of an international patent application (Nº PCT/IB2024/058128) for the developed system, as well as the publication of several scientific articles in the fields of heterogeneous catalysis, catalyst design, and environmental technologies.

As part of her doctoral training, Sofia was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to conduct part of her research at The University of Texas at Austin (USA). During this period, she deepened her expertise in metal alloy synthesis and completed several advanced trainings in materials characterization techniques. She received her PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering in June 2025.

Currently, she is involved in the H2Driven Agenda Project, where she is responsible for developing metallic catalysts supported on carbon materials and metal oxides with high activity, to be applied in catalytic CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol.