Zita Martins

(born March 19, 1979, Lisbon)

Zita Martins graduated in Chemistry from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in 2002 and obtained her PhD in Astrobiology from Leiden University (The Netherlands) in 2007. She was a Visiting Scientist at NASA Goddard (United States of America) in 2005 and 2006, and an Invited Professor at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (France) in 2012. In 2009 she was awarded a Royal Society Research Fellowship worth £1 Million, and she was a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Imperial College London (UK) until the end of 2017. Since January 2018 she has been an Associate Professor at IST, where she founded the first Astrobiology laboratory in Portugal. From 2019 to March 2023, she was Co-Director of the MIT-Portugal Program. In March 2021, she was appointed advisor to the President of the Portuguese Republic on Higher Education, Science, Innovation and Digital Transition.

She has participated in several space missions and she is a member of several international committees, chairing the Solar System and Exploration Working Group (SSEWG) at the European Space Agency (ESA). She is a science communicator and was selected by the BBC TV channel as Expert Women Scientist. She had the honour of having her portrait sketched (special commission) for the Royal Society exhibit about successful women in science and is now permanently on display at the Royal Society headquarters, in London. In 2015 she was appointed Oficial da Ordem Militar de Sant’Iago da Espada (OSE) by His Excellency the President of the Portuguese Republic for exceptional and outstanding merits in science.