Catarina has a BSc in Biology from the University of Porto. In 2018 she finished her MSc in Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution, University of Porto, jointly supervised with Raquel Vasconcelos. Her MSc focused on the Giant wall gecko (Tarentola gigas) diet analysis, for guiding reserve management in Cabo Verde.

Currently she works as Junior Researcher at CIBIO/BIOPOLIS.