With an academic background in applied physics and materials science, Joana Ribeiro specializes in metallic and oxide coatings by magnetron sputtering, vacuum technology and advanced characterization techniques for micro and nano materials. She recently joined INL in 2025 as an Applications Engineer at the Nanostructured Solar Cells group, to develop Solid State Thin Film Batteries for the New Generation Storage project.

During her time as a research fellow at the University of Minho (UM, Braga, Portugal), she worked in the development of transparent thermoelectric thin films for touch displays and Perovskite solar cells. She has also worked on polymeric and composite materials for photocatalytic applications in wastewater treatment and dermo cosmetics. She earned a Ph.D. in Physics in 2024 from the UM, where she collaborated with the Institute for Nanotechnology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (INT-KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany) to develop transparent TiO2:Nb and ZnO-based thermoelectric thin films for thermal energy harvesting.