Mariana is graduated on Psychology by University of Lisbon (1989), PhD Public Health in 2010, with specialty Promotion of Health by National School of Public Health by Universidade Nova de Lisboa, with a thesis entitled “Promotion of Health after 65 years: Elements for an integrated aging policy”.

 Her career include diversity functions: Public Administration bodies and similar, but also in projects of local development partnerships and associations and international networks, along with teaching activities (including Social Gerontology Master) and research, including a scholarship of JNICT, INIC e FCT.

 In May of 2011, became researcher in Institute of Ageing, and between 2013 and 2015, postdoctoral scholarship of FCT in Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL) where develops the project AUPE - "Participation and Urban Built Environment Change for Healthy Ageing” and coordinates the network  CIT-A-PE - "Forum Walkable Cities, Cities for (All) People”, member of European Innovation Partnership for Active and Healthy Ageing - D4  Age-Friendly Environments.

 Her main research interests are in the area of health promotion and aging, including factors of the physical environment /urban context (mobility), influential in the welfare and participation of older people; integrated interventions, promoting cities “for all ages”, social inequalities and determinants of health of the elderly; local observatories of health and aging.