She studied at the university of Lisbon and the Free University of Amsterdam and has a PHD in Artificial Intelligence from Utrecht University in 2004. In 2006 she was awarded the prestigious Veni grant by the NWO (Dutch Organization for Scientific Research). She a well-known speaker on the social and ethical impacts of Artificial Intelligence, is member of the reviewing boards for all major journals and conferences in AI and has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers.