Joana Brilhante is the 2024 Young Scholar Award winner, an award by the European Sociological Association for the paper «”Out[side], loud and proud!”: An insular approach to LGBTQ narratives and experiences» on LGBTQ+ narratives in insular contexts drawing on her work as researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at The University of Coimbra (CES).

Post-doctoral researcher at the project TRACE- Tracing Queer Citizenship over Time: Ageing, ageism and age-related LGBTI+ politics in Europe, at the Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra.

She holds a BA in Anthropology, a MSc in Biology and Human Evolution, and a PhD in Human Rights in Contemporary Societies from the University of Coimbra, with a thesis entitled "The Insular Efect: LGBTQ people's experiences through the lens of geographical isolation".

She works in LGBTQ studies and Human Rights, through a critical and intersectional approach, with particular research interest in geographies of sexualities, island studies and rural queer studies.