Helena Pala D. Sousa graduated in Biological Engineering at University of Minho in 1995 and she held a postgraduate course in Environmental Technology in 2000. In 2002 she completed a PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering at University of Minho. Between 1995 and 1997 she collaborated with Instituto de Desenvolvimento e Inovação Tecnológica - Núcleo de Estudos de Poluição (IDIT-NEP), where she was involved in the design, monitoring and control of several industrial wastewater treatment plants. She has been a professor at School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria since 2002 and she is currently a Coordinating Professor at the Department of Environmental Engineering. She was the Coordinator of the Department of Environmental Engineering (2008 - 2015) and she held several other positions of technical-scientific management since she has started her career at the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria.