Maria Eduarda Cruzeiro (Lisbon, 1937), holds a degree in Romanic Philology from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon (1966) and in Sociology from the University of Paris VIII (1972); DEASS and a PhD in Sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1972 and 1990). In 1966, she became a member of the GIS with a Sociology grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. She stayed in GIS and then in the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon until the end of her career, in 2007. She was a lecturer in ISCTE from 1972 to 1992. She was a member of the executive group of GIS and a member of the Executive Board of ISCTE (1974-1976). She was Chairman of the Governing Board of ICS (1992-2007), and an Invited Researcher in the Centre de Sociologie Européenne.
Her main publications include: "Ensino secundário: duas populações, duas escolas", Análise Social, vol. 14 (1978); "A reforma pombalina na história da Universidade", Análise Social, vol. 24 (1988); "Capital simbólico e memória institucional - a propósito da Universidade no século XIX", Análise Social, vol. 24 (1988); "A Universidade sitiada: a Universidade de Coimbra entre os dois liberalismos (1820-1834)", Análise Social, vol. 29 (1994). Processos de intensificação no Português dos séculos XIII a XV (1973); Action symbolique et formation scolaire. L'Université de Coimbra et sa Faculté de droit dans la seconde moité du XIXe siècleI (1990).