Joana Órfão

Profile

Research Group: RG2 – Ocean, coastal and land surface processes
Position at IDL: PhD Student
Job: PhD Student 
Email: joanaorfao@alunos.fc.ul.pt 
Academic Degree and field of specialization: 

Since 2021: PhD student at Instituto Dom Luiz, FCUL, Portugal (funded by the FCT grant UI/BD/151411/2021). Doctoral programme in Geology – Specialization in Paleontology and Stratigraphy.

2020-2021: Volunteer researcher at EvoLab – Laboratory of Evolutionary Biology, DBio, University of Aveiro.

2017-2019: MSc. in Applied Ecology, University of Aveiro, Portugal.

Scientific Informations

ORCID: https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-9732-4911

Researcher ID: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/E-2783-2018

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joana-Orfao

Scientific Interests

Main Interests: 

My main scientific interests comprise both Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology. 

I’ve received my MSc in Applied Ecology by the University of Aveiro (Portugal) in December 2019, with a thesis titled “On captorhinids: analysis of morphological characters with particular attention to skull sculpturing”. I’ve won a Sylvester-Bradley Small Grant Award by the Palaeontological Society with a project stemming from this research.

Currently, I’m a PhD student of Geology – Specialty of Paleontology and Stratigraphy at the University of Lisbon (Portugal), and am working as a researcher at Instituto Dom Luiz since October 2021. My PhD is funded by the FCT grant UI/BD/151411/2021.

At this moment, my research is focused on the paleoecology of Sauropoda; I hope to combine paleontology knowledge with my ecological background and modelling know-how to shed light on the biodiversity of these dinosaurs.

My PhD advisors are Pedro Mocho (Instituto D. Luiz – FCUL, Portugal) and Francisco Ortega (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain).

Field work (Pombal, Portugal) with the IDL/UNED team. November 2021.

Top 10 Publications: 

[1] Órfão, Joana. 2019. On captorhinids: analysis of morphological characters with particular attention to skull sculpturing. Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. [MSc thesis]

Conferences (last 15 presentations): 

[1] Órfão, Joana & Castanhinha, Rui. 2020. Sculptured craniums and how to describe them in fossil vertebrates. GSA Connects 2020, U.S.A. (online)

[2] Órfão, Joana & Castanhinha, Rui. 2019. Sculptured craniums and how to describe them in fossil vertebrates. XV Encontro Nacional de Biologia Evolutiva, Portugal.

Awards: 

Palaeontological’s Association Sylvester-Bradley Award (PA-SB202002): “On captorhinids: is skull sculpturing a good criterion to distinguish taxa?“