PhD in History from the University of Bamberg, Germany. From 1986 to 1995 she was a research fellow at the Institute of Modern History of the University of Bamberg, from 1997 to 2002 member of the board of directors and until 2006 coordinator for History at the Faculty of Arts of UCP in Viseu. Coordinator of the research project on History and Historiography in Germany and Portugal at the Interuniversity Research Centre for German Studies (CIEG) in Coimbra. Since 2006 Professor at FCH and member of the Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC). Between 2014 and 2017 she was a Senior Fellow at Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. Her main research areas are intercultural issues, the history of knowledge and visual culture in Early Modern Europe.