Patrícia Garcia Pereira

My PhD thesis was about Portuguese Butterfly diversity and contributed not only to increase scientific knowledge on this group of insects in the country, but also provided the basis to develop a future strategy to its conservation. A parallel training period at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid complemented my formation. In 2004, I created the NGO Tagis – Portuguese Butterfly Conservation in the National Museum of Natural History and Science. I was committed to the development, coordination and management of projects and events related with environmental education and public awareness of science. Indeed, I coordinated innumerous activities to bring science closer to society: special programs in schools, several scientific exhibitions, guided visits to nature reserves or a scientific documentary. In 2009 I obtained a Ciência 2008 contract with the University of Lisbon for the position of Science Communication in Biodiversity and Nature Conservation at the National Museum of Natural History and Science. The main achievement during this period was the development of the commemorative program of the Biodiversity year. The curatorship of the exhibition Insects in Order was the major challenge for the novelty of the designed exhibition (like a labyrinth); dimension (600m2); the huge amount of information and the inclusion of biological specimens. Our effort was well rewarded by the public response and the excellent review published on Science (“Six-Legged Fun”, Vol. 330: 590). A travel version of this exhibition, financed by the programme O Mundo na Escola, has been itinerating through Portugal and is now presented at the Parque Urbano Santa Iria da Azóia. For the itinerant program, we published an exhibition catalogue. In the last year at the museum I coordinated the Image and Communication Service. In 2014 I started to work in CE3C to create the center’s Science Communication and Outreach Office. I had the privilege to be part of the beginning of the CE3C strategic programme implementation: creation of the new image, website, diffusion materials, FCUL’s exhibition, and evaluation process. I am currently integrated in the Conservation in Socio-Ecological Systems to develop my post-doc research about Biodiversity Stations Network to promote Citizen Science in Portugal, studies about the diversity and monitoring of several groups of insects and coordination of the evaluation of conservation status of priority insets species in the aim of the project Portuguese Invertebrates Red List.