Alexandra S. Simões completed her PhD in Biology in 2011 at the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (ITQB NOVA),specializing in the epidemiology of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococci of the Mitis Group.

Following a postdoctoral fellowship at IHMT NOVA, where she worked on the implementation of Antibiotic Stewardship Programs and tools to prevent healthcare-associated infections, she returned to ITQB NOVA as a postdoctoral researcher and Lab/Project Manager at the Raquel Sá-Leão Lab. Since then, she has been team member in several research projects focusing on the molecular epidemiology of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines on pneumococcal carriage.