Rita Gouveia (Tondela, 1983). She began her academic career in Psychology, with a degree in Social Psychology (2006) and a master’s degree (2008) in Educational, Developmental, and Counselling Psychology from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Coimbra. In 2014, she obtained her Ph.D. in Sociology from ICS/UL - Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, which resulted in the thesis entitled "Personal Networks in Portugal: Combining a Configurational and Lifecourse Approaches". She first developed her post-doctoral studies at the University of Geneva in the context of the NCCR LIVES - Overcoming Vulnerability program, in which she focused on the longitudinal effects of personal networks on the psychological and marital vulnerability of heterosexual couples. Over the last years, she carried out her post-doctoral project (FCT) at the ICS on the study of family meanings in the personal networks of gay and lesbian persons in Portugal, and more recently, she co-coordinated two surveys on the social impacts of COVID-19 in Portugal, carried out during the two major lockdowns in March 2020 and February 2021. Currently, she is a postdoc researcher in the context of the international project "Networks of Reproduction in the Complex Planetary Future: Intimacy, Companionship and Family Building in Finland, Portugal, and Scotland", funded by the Kone Foundation. At ICS, she is part of the research group "LIFE - Life Course, Inequality and Solidarity: Practices and Policies" and collaborates with OFAP - Observatory of Families and Family Policies. She also holds positions in scientific associations: she is the co-coordinator of the Thematic Section "Families and the Lifecourse" of the Portuguese Sociological Association; she is an executive member of the board of the European Society for Family Relationships (ESFR) and of the "Families and Intimate Life" research network of the European Sociological Association (ESA).