Maria José Brites is an Associate Professor with Habilitation at Lusófona University. She is the coordinator of the CICANT - Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/05260/2025) and the Head of the MeLCi Lab - Media Literacy and Civic Cultures Lab. She has taught on undergraduate, master's and doctoral programmes, delivering courses such as Publics and Audiences, Media Activisms and Civic Cultures, Critical Media Literacies, Theory of Journalism, Media Theory, Ethics, and Qualitative Methodologies. She is also the Vice-Chair of the Audience and Reception Studies Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). In 2025, she was appointed Scientific Adviser to the National Media Literacy Plan, which is administered and coordinated by #PortugalMediaLab. She also coordinates the Master's degree in Media and Digital Citizenship at Lusófona University. She was the Principal Investigator on the YouNDigital - Youth, News and Digital Citizenship research project (PTDC/COM-OUT/0243/2021), which targeted young people and also engaged with adults. She was also the PI of the SMaRT-EU - Social Media Resilience Toolkit project, co-financed by the European Commission (grant no. LC-01563446), which focused on intergenerational approaches to digital environments and disinformation. She also led the Dici-Educa - Educational Centres with Digital and Civic Skills project, which was co-financed by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian/Academias do Conhecimento and the Directorate-General for Reintegration and Prison Services. This project was designed for young people in detention centres. She also served as the Portuguese coordinator of the MIA - Media In Action project (grant no. LC-00644630) and the RadioActive Europe project (grant no. 531245-LLP-1-2012-1-UK-KA3-KA3). As part of the RadioActive Europe project, she received the Inclusion and Digital Citizenship Award from the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology and the Rede TIC e Sociedade in recognition of the project's successful implementation of good practices in Portugal and aimed for its extension. She was later recognised with the Research Prize in 2017, 2020 and 2023, as well as the Gold Medal of Academic Merit in 2019 and the Award of Recognition and Merit (2026), all by Lusófona University. Her research focuses on youth, journalism and participation; audience and reception studies; news and civic literacy; intergenerational context of the media; and on digital disconnection and news avoidance. Furthermore, she has a particular expertise in qualitative and participatory methodologies, which are important in social research. She has an extensive record of research coordination and publication in these fields, including six edited volumes, seven special issues, and over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Communication, the Journal of Youth Studies, Media, Culture & Society, Cultura y Educación/Culture and Education, the International Journal of Inclusive Education, Participations: International Journal of Audience Research, Medijske studije/Media Studies, JOCAM and Children & Society. She has also published more than 30 book chapters with publishers such as Routledge, Springer and Palgrave. She is a certified trainer accredited by the Portuguese Ministry of Education, the Media and Journalism Literacy Association and the National Scientific-Pedagogical Council for Continuous Education, the Portuguese institution responsible for teacher training certification. She has coordinated and delivered over 50 training courses and workshops on journalism, media education, digital citizenship, participation, and media practices for children, young people, older adults, teachers, journalists, and staff from NGOs and public institutions. She has extensive experience in the professional development of teachers, educators and young people.