FCT Principal Investigator at the Center for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra since 2014, Tiago Pires Marques received his PhD in History from the European University Institute of Florence, with the dissertation Crime and the Fascist State (Routledge, 2016). He carried out his post-doctorate between 2008 and 2013, with the project “Science, religion and subjectivities”, at the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (Ecole Normale Supérieure - University of Paris 1), at Cermes3 (CNRS ) and at the Portuguese Catholic University. He investigates the history of mental health institutions and practices in relation to the medicalization of life and the history of human rights, and is especially interested in the knowledge, political proposals and alternatives to psychiatry produced by user and survivor movements in the field of psychiatry. His recent publications, the books Legitimicaies of Madness. Suffering, struggle, creativity and belonging (Edufba, 2018; coord. in collaboration with Mônica Nunes) and Health Reinvented: New perspectives on the medicalization of life (CES/ Almedina; coord. in collaboration with Sílvia Portugal); as well as articles in scientific journals such as History of Psychiatry, Interface, and Transcultural Psychiatry.

PhD in Sociology from the University of Coimbra, Sílvia Portugal is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC) and researcher at the Center for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra. Her research work has employed network theory to discuss the relationships between formal and informal systems of producing well-being. In this context, she has researched the importance of the family in the Portuguese social protection system, with special emphasis on the role of women. Her most recent research interests and research focus on the issues of disability, mental illness, and chronicity. She edited “Citizenship, Public Policies and Social Networks” (IUC, 2011); Mental Illness, Institutions, and Families. The challenges of deinstitutionalization in Portugal, with Pedro Hespanha et al. (Almedina, 2012); Families and Social Networks. Strong Links in Well-being Production (Almedina, 2014); Experience, Health, Chronicity: a socio-anthropological look, with Reni Barsaglini and Lucas Melo (FIOCRUZ/IUC, 2021) and Health Reinvented: New perspectives on the medicalization of life, with Tiago Pires Marques (CES/Almedina, 2021).

António Carvalho works as an Invited Assistant Professor at the sociology department of the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra. He is a permanent researcher of the Centre for Social Studies, where he currently coordinates the research project TROPO: Anthropocenic Ontologies in Portugal - Social Movements, Public Policies and Emerging Technologies. He's also a member of the coordination team of the Annual Conferences Cycle "Young Social Scientists", of the editorial staff of Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais and of CES' Ethics Commission. His current research interests include Biopolitics, the Anthropocene, Mindfulness, post-humanist theory and affect. His work has been published in journals such as Public Understanding of Science, Subjectivity, Nanoethics, Minerva, Social Movement Studies and The Sociological Review.

Emmanuel Delille is a historian of science and medicine. He earned a PhD in history at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris) in 2008. In 2022, he also earned the Habilitation (HDR) at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS-Paris) with a new book on comparative history (Une histoire comparée de la psychiatrie, Éditions rue d’Ulm). One of his major interests is the history of psychiatry: the intellectual networks and comparative history between Europe and North America — particularly Canada. Other research projects after his PhD include the history of the French psychiatric hospital Bonneval (Eure-et-Loir), the history of Canadian transcultural psychiatry, and the history of the French scholarly society L’Évolution Psychiatrique. In different comparative perspectives, his main inquiry remains the shaping of the dynamic of the circulation of knowledge. Emmanuel teaches at the Department of Contemporary History of the University Johannes Gutenberg and is currently Associate Researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, Germany. Among his publications, feature: Emmanuel Delille (ed), Henri Ellenberger's Ethnopsychiatry, Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020; and Emmanuel Delille and Ivan Crozier (ed.), History of Psychiatry, vol. 29 (3) special issue: “Historicizing Transcultural Psychiatry”, 2018.

Helena da Silva holds a PhD in History from the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France) and from the University of Minho (2010). She is a historian and researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History at NOVA FCSH. She was responsible for the research project ‘Medical and Healthcare services in the First World War: the case of the Portuguese soldiers during and after the Great War (1914 1960)’, funded by the FCT. She is editor of Cambridge University Press's Continuity and Change journal and responsible for the Memória Covid project. She is the author of several articles and books on the history of health and nursing, such as La naissance de la profession infirmière au Portugal (2020), and has co-edited books such as Centennial of the Pneumonic Influenza (2019).

Filipa Queirós, PhD, is a sociologist and researcher at the Center for Social Studies. With an approach from the social studies of science and technology, she began her research trajectory in the health domain, publishing on citizenship and the illness experience narratives in some of the most relevant peer-reviewed journals in the field. More recently, she has articulated this approach with the social studies of surveillance, where she has explored the role of science and technology in monitoring populations. In particular, she reflects on the way in which privacy, the construction of criminal suspicion and social control are being (re)constructed in the face of a global scenario of increased surveillance by States.

Mattia Faustini is a doctoral candidate and researcher at the Center for Social Studies. Graduated in Clinical Dynamic Psychology at the University of Padova (IT), his interests focus on the area of literature and the sociology of culture, particularly in poetic writing and poetry-therapy. Currently enrolled in the interdisciplinary doctoral course Discourses: Culture, History and Society (CES; FLUC; FEUC), he studies poetry workshops as a participatory research methodology and as a space for a counter-hegemonic imagination of citizenship. He is a member and author of the Cultural Section of Writing and Reading of the Associação Académica de Coimbra (SESLA), with which he organizes cycles of cultural and performance events in urban contexts. A psychologist among poets and a poet among psychologists, all in all Mattia Faustini neither one nor the other.

Swiss anthropologist based in Brazil. Studied at the universities of Neuchâtel and Montreal, Maurice de Torrenté works in the interdisciplinary fields of Public Health, Health Anthropology and Transcultural Psychiatry. He is a co-founder and researcher of the Interdisciplinary Nucleus of Studies in Mental Health (NISAM) at the Institute of Collective Health of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA); and co-founder and tutor of the Multiprofessional Internship in Mental Health (RMSM-ISC) in the same department. Maurice de Torrenté  has experience in research, intervention, publication and translation, mainly on the following topics: mental health; psychiatric reform; stigma; medicalization of existence; assessment of health technologies; museography; and cultural heritage.

Psychiatrist, PhD in Anthropology, Professor at the Institute of Collective Health – UFBA, Coordinator of the Nucleus of Interdisciplinary Studies in Mental Health – NISAM, Mônica Nunes is member of the Coordinating Nucleus of the Commission on Social and Human Sciences in Health of the Brazilian Association in Collective Health – ABRASCO, and currently Visiting Professor at the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra. Author of more than fifty articles in scientific journals and co-editor of the collections Legitimacies of Madness. Suffering, struggle, creativity and belonging and Mental Health in Primary Care: Politics and Daily Life, among others.

Psychologist (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Master in Health Information and Communication (ICICT-Fiocruz) and PhD in Public Health, with emphasis on Social Sciences in Health (Collective Health Institute - Federal University of Bahia), Clarice Portugal develops her research in the area of Health Anthropology, especially on topics related to mental health, therapeutic itineraries and social participation in public health policies.

Psychologist and Health Professional; Assistant Professor at the State University of Health Sciences of Alagoas (Uncisal); Doctoral student in Social Psychology in the program "Persona y Sociedad en el mundo contemporáneo" (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona/ Spain) and doctoral internship in the Center for Social Studies (University of Coimbra/ Portugal); Master and Specialization in Public Health (Aggeu Magalhães Institute/ FIOCRUZ), Specialization in Mental Health (Federal University of Pernambuco/ UFPE), and in Follow-up, Monitoring and Evaluation in Collective Health Education (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul/ UFRGS). Current Approach in the Mental Health, Postcolonialism and Interculturalism. Practical experience in several psychosocial attention services; in academic, technical and health education project management; and of investigation in the field of public policy evaluation and history of mental health, with published works in these areas.

Gilles Bibeau, Professor Emeritus at the Université de Montréal, has received academic
training in biochemistry, philosophy, comparative religions and anthropology. His research
activities took place in Africa (1966-1979) on traditional medicines, in India (since 1990) on
asceticism and mental health problems, and in the Americas on public health and socio-
cultural psychiatry. He is the author of over 350 publications: author or editor of 17 books;
90 chapters of books; and more than 250 articles in peer-review journals. He has trained
over 150 PhD & Master students. The topics he explores are the following: Origin of
languages; Popular Systems of Knowledge; Cultures of youth; Street gangs; Comparative
ethical end legal systems; World Mental Health; Social and Cultural Pediatrics; Comparative
Literature; Critical approaches in public health; Social Determinants of Health;
Biotechnologies, genomics & anthropology; Human rights, ethical relativism and
comparative legal systems; Decolonisation in Africa; Ethnicity and immigration; Juvenile
culture, drug-abuse and violence. He has served successively as President of the Canadian
Association for African Studies and President of the Canadian Council of Area Studies
Learned Societies (Asia, Latin America, Africa). In that context, he has developed a number of
cooperative activities between universities of the North and those of the South. Over the
years, he has be invited professor in 20 universities on all continents.