Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism at the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), Brazil, where she teaches in the Tourism Management undergraduate programme and the Graduate Programme in Cultural Heritage. She serves as Coordinator of the Tourism Management Programme and leads the Research Group on Organisational and Regional Development (UFSM/CNPq). She holds a PhD (2007) and a Masters degree (1999) in Social Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), as well as a Bachelors degree in Social Communication Public Relations from UFSM (1993). She completed postdoctoral research in Communication at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in 2018, with an emphasis on tourism communication, and at the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, in 2024. The latter was funded by a CNPq fellowship and focused on stakeholders, culture, and creative industries in cross-border territories.She coordinates the Caminhos do Sul Tourism Observatory, an interinstitutional initiative developed in partnership with the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology Farroupilha (IFFar). She also coordinates research projects funded by CNPq through its 2024 Universal Call and by FAPERGS under Call No. 06/2025. In addition, she is a researcher in the international WINES project, funded by the Horizon Europe programme through the Marie Sk#322;odowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges scheme.She represents UFSM on the Regional Development Committee of the Association of Universities of the Montevideo Group (AUGM) and is a member of the CNPq Research Group on Public Communication of Science and Interfaces. Her academic and professional work focuses on the intersections between communication and organisations, tourism management, cultural heritage, creative industries, public policy, territorial governance, and sustainable development, with particular emphasis on applied research, interinstitutional collaboration, and the production of knowledge to support management and regional development.