Driven by questions related with territorial development, Maria has been, since 2017, the coordinator of Plataforma de Ciência Aberta (Open Science Hub - Portugal), a social innovation program from the Municipality of Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, a low density territory in the northeast of Portugal.
From 2019 to 2021, Maria worked as the international project manager of the H2020 Open Science Hub project, at Leiden University (project coordinator). And before, she was responsible for the Science Education programme at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal (2015-2017), where Maria did her PhD (in Neuroscience).