Maria Conceição de Brito Caldeira is an Associate Professor at Instituto Superior de Agronomia of the University of Lisbon.
She is also an integrated member of the Center for Forestry Studies and the TERRA Associated Laboratory. She has coordinated several subjects in the areas of ecology and forest restoration, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and tree ecophysiology. She is the coordinator of the Forest Ecology research group at the Center for Forestry Studies and of the Laboratory of Ecophysiology and Forest Improvement. She has published over 90 scientific articles in ISI journals, including in Science, Nature Ecology and Evolution, Global Change Biology, Nature Communications, and New Phytologist, and has coordinated over seven research projects. Her research interests focus on understanding the functioning and resilience of terrestrial ecosystems within the context of global changes. She is particularly interested in comprehending how trees respond to recurrent drought episodes, especially when interacting with other biotic or abiotic factors, and how biodiversity influences ecosystem functioning and resilience to climate change and land use change.