Maria-João Cardoso

Champalimaud Foundation Clinical Partner Team Member

Maria-João Cardoso, named “MJ” by her friends with difficulty in pronouncing the “João” part of her first name was born in Porto, Portugal.
Both parents were doctors and Medicine was a natural choice and Surgery was always a first option due to her love for hand work and art.
Very early in her surgical career she was attracted by breast surgery and when she was doing her specialty, oncoplastic and reconstructive surgery were progressing fast. She then left Portugal for some time to learn new ways of thinking about breast cancer and new ways of doing breast surgery.
Coming back, the pathway of breast surgery and of how patients see the results continued until today with an unforeseen cooperation with one out of the box engineer with the same family name – Jaime Cardoso that was giving the first steps into artificial intelligence through image analysis. And what a cooperation it was, and it is. Twenty years after, here they are conducting CINDERELLA together with other amazing partners.
MJ is married with an Obstetrician and has two daughters. One in the international law and human rights career and the other one in business.
MJ lives in Lisbon and bikes to work. She loves water sports like swimming and paddle surf, she has two dogs that frequently join her zoom meetings, and a house in the north of Portugal where she spends her family holidays.

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement number 101057389