Biography
Ana Mafalda Lopes is a historian whose work combines socio-economic history, gender, and family history, with a focus on the eighteenth century and the transition to nineteenth-century Portugal.
In 2024, she completed her FCT-funded PhD in History at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, with a thesis entitled As viúvas do Porto: património, negócios e família (1700–1832). Her dissertation examined legal changes affecting the status of widows and explored their involvement in various aspects of everyday life, particularly in relation to family, property, business, the labour market, and the empire. The study also compared women of different marital statuses and considered whether widowhood constituted a disruption or marked a significant shift in social, familial, and economic structures. In 2025, she won the Prize for Best PhD Dissertation in History defended in the previous year, Prémio Pina Manique – Do Iluminismo à Revolução Liberal, awarded by the Portuguese Academy of History.
As a Max Weber Fellow, Ana Mafalda is revising her manuscript into her first monograph and publishing peer-reviewed articles under the mentorship of Professor Mónica Bolufer and Professor Alexia Yates. After this fellowship, she will begin a three-year postdoctoral position at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University Lisbon, for the project MIGRANT WOMEN: Gender, Labour and Social Control in Lisbon (1760–1860), funded through the FCT Scientific Employment Stimulus programme.