Maria José Goulão holds a PhD in Art History (Univ. of Coimbra), is an Art Historian, and has been teaching Art History at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto for 30 years. She has also lectured at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra, at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, and at Doctorate Programs from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain) and “Cultural Heritages of Portuguese Influence” (III-UC, University of Coimbra). She is a researcher at GEMA (Group of Multidisciplinary Studies in Art, CEAACP).

She is the author of many articles, diverse chapters and one book, on Medieval, Renaissance and South American Art. She has carried out extensive research on the circulation of artistic forms in the South Atlantic region during the colonial period.

She participated in more than 60 scientific meetings in Portugal, Spain, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, and has lectured in diverse institutions in Portugal, Brazil and Canada. As a fellow from many grants, she travelled extensively through the USA, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Ecuador for her research. She was a Visiting Scholar at Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), and at the University of Texas at Austin (USA).