Poland ‘2015
Leeds, UK 2016
This path eventually led to a PhD in Management at the University of St Andrews.
In 2019, I began working closely with young people through A&J. It started, quite simply, as a way to afford life in Scotland.
I was working daily with young people navigating anxiety, motivation, identity, and uncertainty, often within digitally saturated and algorithmically shaped environments.
Before fully committing to A&J and working directly with young people, I spent time in academic roles across different institutions. These included research experiences at NYU and Cornell, a postdoctoral position at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and as Assistant Professor at Leiden University. Each context sharpened my thinking, but also reinforced a growing sense that the questions that mattered most to me could not be answered from a distance.
In 2024 I concluded my second Masters, this time in Psychology.
One of the most meaningful moments in my career came when A&J was awarded a King’s Award for Enterprise, recognising our work in educational innovation. The recognition mattered, but not as a badge. It mattered as confirmation that educational systems grounded in care, psychological safety, and developmental integrity can scale without losing their human core.
Cessna 150
Boyarka, Cherkassy Region. Ukraine 2013
Besleneyevskaya, Russia, 2014
I enrolled in Computer Science because it was rational and employable. I left after a year.
I then tried Accounting, stayed longer, and left again.
Three years, gone. Or so it felt at the time.
What I was learning, slowly and without much drama, was that competence without meaning is difficult to sustain.
Marketing was a final attempt to find coherence. This time, it worked. I completed the degree, including a year abroad in Poland, and went on to pursue a Master’s degree in Data Science applied to Marketing at the University of Leeds, supported by a scholarship. The work was, in effect, applied artificial intelligence, long before AI became part of everyday language.
The Gateway, St Andrews, 2019
The Famous Lorentzzaal at Leiden University, 2022
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2021
Receiving the King’s Award from the Lord Liutenant of London, 2025
My work now sits at the intersection of developmental psychology, education, and AI. I am interested in how young people develop psychological agency in environments structured by digital and intelligent systems, how they regulate emotion and attention, and how educational contexts can either support or undermine this process.
Across research, writing, and applied work, I return to a single question: how can technological and educational systems support secure development, rather than undermine the psychological foundations of safety, trust, and agency?
This site is a space for thinking in public.
It brings together ideas in development, reflections grounded in practice, and attempts to articulate new ways of understanding development in a world increasingly shaped by algorithms. It is not a finished answer, but an ongoing inquiry.
My Story
I didn’t start out knowing what I wanted to do. I started out doing what felt necessary.
As a teenager, I wanted to be a pilot. I liked the idea of being somewhere else. It was never really an option though. Flying lessons were expensive, and money was tight.
Those years coincided with the financial crisis in Portugal. Stability mattered. Like many of my generation, I worked continuously to afford my studies, moving between jobs and degrees, trying to make sensible choices without yet having a clear sense of direction. I wasn’t dramatically lost.
Whenever I could, I travelled. I saved, worked, and left. I spent periods of time living in small villages in Russia and Ukraine, far from universities or institutions. I learned Russian, travelled long distances by train, stayed with people who lived simply and closely, and encountered ways of life shaped by history, constraint, and strong relational ties.
I wasn’t trying to find myself. I was just living.
