Cristina Brito is Associate Professor at the History Department at NOVA FCSH, Lisbon, where she teaches History of European Expansions and supervises several students in the fiel of Environmental history. She is a senior researcher at CHAM - Center for the Humanities, and is currently the PI of the ERC Synergy Grant 4-OCEANS: Human History of Marine Life (2021-2027).

She holds a PhD in History from NOVA FCSH, a Masters in Ethology from ISPA, and a Bachelor degree in Biology from FCUL. Prior to her current positions, she has been awarded a Research Contract by FCT (IF/00610/2015) also at CHAM (NOVA FCSH) to investigate - Cow-fish, ngulu-maza or iguaragua? Local and Global Knowledge Production, Changing Perceptions and Practices on Marine Animals in the Atlantic (2016-2019).

Her new book - Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern Africa and Americas - is now published by Amsterdam University Press (2023), as well as a new book chapter in a co-edited volume by Brill on the natural histry of whales in early modern Portugal (2024). She has an interdisciplinary, comparative and cross-cultural approach to her research. Her scientific interests include early modern marine environmental history, local and global perceptions about and uses of the seas by different human societies, Atlantic and oceanic histories, humans and nonhumans entanglements, the Anthropocene and the Blue Humanities.

She is also an affiliated researcher to TCEH - Trinity Center for Environmentla Humanities (Trinity College Dublin), a member of the Board of OPI - Oceans Past Initiative, and an active member of several networks, such as the UNESCO Chair on Oceans' Cultural Heritage and IPOS - International Panel for Ocean Sustainability. Her current management positions include the board of CHAM, the Board of directors of NOVA FCSH, the Scientific Council of NOVA FCSH, and the Strategic Council for Research at University NOVA of Lisbon.