Catarina is a biologist specialist in the ecology of tropical forests. Her line of research aims to understand how forests regenerate after natural or anthropogenic disturbances, what is known as the process of secondary succession. The effects of land use (e.g. cattle ranching and agriculture) on the potential for forest regrowth has been the main subject of her research in the last years. Catarina did her bachelor at São Paulo University-USP and the masters at UNICAMP. After that she worked as a fellow researcher at the National Institute for Amazon Research – INPA and later received her PhD degree from the Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Currently, at the Centre for Conservation and Sustainability Science (CSRio) and at the International Institute for Sustainability (IIS) the researcher is applying the knowledge on the potential for natural regeneration to improve the models for prioritization of ecological restoration in the six biomes of Brazil.