Maria Manuel Marques was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1972. She studied chemistry at the new University of Lisbon, from where she also received her PhD in organic chemistry in 2001 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. S. Prabhakar.
From 2001 to 2003 she joined the group of Prof. Dr. J. Mulzer at the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Vienna, as a postdoctoral research fellow.
In 2003, she returned to the Faculty of Science and Technology, New University of Lisbon (Requimte) as a research fellow. Since 2004 she has been involved in organic chemistry teaching at the Chemistry Department, and in 2016 she obtained her Habilitation in Chemistry.
Since 2018 she is an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of FCT-NOVA.
She has supervised several postdocs, PhD students and Master students. Her research encompasses the development of new synthetic and sustainable methodologies involving metal-catalyzed reactions towards bioactive compounds, in particular heterocyclic molecules, and the development of new synthetic strategies to prepare glycopeptides in order to understand biological systems.