In 2009, I received a FCT-funded PhD fellowship to pursue a Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Otago (New Zealand). Upon completion of my award-winning Ph.D., I worked as an Invited Assistant Professor and Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Minho (UM) (2014-2019). Currently, I am a Junior Researcher at the tier 1 Research Unit in Psychology in Portugal (CIPsi -UM), and a certified member of the Portuguese Order of Psychologists. Since the end of my Ph.D. (2014), I have been paving the path to scientific independence. To elaborate, I have published more than 35 articles in high-impact peer-reviewed international journals and 10 book chapters with high-profile international publishers, while developing academic supervision skills; in fact, Ph.D. and Masters¿ students (n=23) have successfully completed their studies under my supervision. Currently, I am supervising 7 Ph.D. students (4 FCT-funded) and 2 Masters's students. Moreover, I made clear efforts to internationalize my research; for example, foreign colleagues appear in 70% of my publications, and I have disseminated my research in more than 40 national and international conferences (e.g., USA, New Zealand, Spain), as well as with the general public through workshops, webinars, and reports. I was awarded five funded projects, one as PI (FCT) ¿In-person and Online Healthy Eating Promotion through Self-regulation: Assessing the Efficacy of a Narrative-based Intervention¿ (PTDC/PSI-GER/28302/2017), and two as CoPI (¿Mentor ¿ Tutorias Autorregulatórias¿ appointed by the Direção Geral de Educação (General Education Authority) of Portugal (2016-2019) and ¿cresciMENTE¿ appointed by the board of the Hospital de Braga (2015-2017)). Recently, I served as an international project evaluator for the Czech Science Foundation (2021) and Honored Judge at RISE VIRTUAL EXPO 2021 (Northeastern University, USA). Finally, I have been invited to be a guest speaker and coordinate a workshop at the ABAI 2022 Annual Convention (USA) due to my unique skills in conducting translational work/research. I am a permanent member of the Ethics Committee for Research in Social and Human Sciences of the Ethics Council of the UM (www.uminho.pt/EN/uminho/Ethics/specialised-committees/Pages/CEICSH.aspx). My line of research is focused on the motivational processes underlying health behaviors (healthy eating, sleep, and physical activity), how these behaviors impact school achievement and engagement, and the study of gamification as a tool to promote engagement in interventions, particularly online.