Ana Teresa Freitas is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (DEI) at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), where she conducts scientific research in the areas of combinatorial algorithms, machine learning, computational biology, AI applied to health technologies and health informatics.

Currently (2025–2026), she serves as President of the DEI, having previously held the position of President of the IST School Assembly (2021–2024). Between 2012 and 2016, she was a member of the IST Scientific Council and part of the DEI Executive Committee. Within the department, she coordinated (2023–2024) the scientific area of Programming Methodology and Technologie (MTP).

During her 36-year career at IST, she spent the first two decades as a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, conducting research in microelectronics and magneto-optics. During this period, she contributed to the development of the Quickchips project, enabling the creation of the first clean room in Portugal for the fabrication of integrated circuits at the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores (INESC). This project marked the beginning of her research career at INESC around 38 years ago.

As a researcher at the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores: Investigação e Desenvolvimento (INESC-ID) in Lisbon, she leads (2022– ) the thematic line “Life and Health Technology.” She is also (2025– ) a non-executive member of the Board of Directors of the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores: Microsistemas e Nanotecnologias (INESC MN).

After obtaining her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2002, she decided to pursue research in the scientific fields of bioinformatics and computational biology. In 2002, she co-founded the Knowledge Discovery and Bioinformatics (KDBIO) research group.

In 2013, she ventured into technology transfer by co-founding HeartGenetics, Genetics and Biotechnology SA, a startup in the field of genetics and digital health. She served as CEO (2013–2022) for a decade, expanding operations across the EU and Latin America. In 2020, the Italian laboratory TOMALAB acquired HeartGenetics. 

In 2013, she completed advanced training in management and entrepreneurship at Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics.

At the European level, she represented Portugal as a member of the Board of Directors (2010–2016) of the European Research Infrastructure for Life Data, ELIXIR, having served as Vice-Chair of the Board in 2017. Currently (2023–2027), she is Director of the Portuguese node of the ELIXIR infrastructure. At the national level, she is a member of the Board of Directors and Vice-President of BioData.pt, the association that manages the Portuguese node of the ELIXIR infrastructure.