Luzia Mara Lima-Rodrigues has devoted her professional life to advancing equity and inclusion in education and society. Her commitment to human rights began in Brazil, where she served as Dean of a Faculty of Education, leading the preparation of teachers from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. She holds a PhD in Education from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. She has worked extensively to support public schools in ensuring meaningful learning opportunities for disadvantaged pupils and those with learning difficulties. A qualified psychopedagogue and sociodramatist, she coordinated groups of educator-actors who dramatise “school scenes” to foster critical reflection on processes of exclusion. Her doctoral research explored the teaching of Kung Fu as a means of developing helping behaviours among fifth-grade pupils in disadvantaged school contexts. 

In Portugal, Lima-Rodrigues is a founding member of Pro-Inclusion – National Association of Teachers of Special Education. She currently serves as Dean of the Master’s Programme in Special Education and of the Postgraduate Programme in Special Education and Inclusive Education at Lusófona University, and is CEO of Vindas International Education. She is a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Education and Development (CeiED), where she is a member of the Research Learning Communities “Public Policies and Governance in Education” and “Teacher Education, Professionalism & Teachers’ Identities.”

She recently coordinated the international research project “Public Policies and Continuing Teacher Education for Inclusive Education,” funded by the Alana Foundation (USA) with support of UNESCO/Brasil, which brought together research teams from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Portugal, Spain and Scotland. Previously, she was a Invited Senior Lecturer at the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal and coordinated the Master’s Programme in Special Education at the Piaget Institute of Almada. She participated in the Erasmus+ project “PERFORMERS2 #SCENE,” which investigated sociodrama training for professionals working with young people in risk situation in Hungary, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Portugal. She was also a member of the research team for the project “Social Participation of Students with SEN in Inclusive Schools,” funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), and coordinated the project “Best Practices in Inclusive Education,” funded by the National Institute for Rehabilitation (Portugal). 

Lima-Rodrigues serves as Session Editor for the Brazilian Journal of Psychodrama and also a peer reviewer for leading academic journals, including the International Journal of Inclusive Education (Taylor & Francis). She was invited co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs (JORSEN) dedicated to the 8th Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress and the IV International Pro-Inclusion Congress (Lisbon, 2016). In addition to her academic career, she is a researcher, university lecturer and spontaneous theatre actress. She was also a high-performance athlete, becoming World Kung Fu Champion in Shaolin, China, in 1995. Her work spans inclusive education, teacher education, action-based learning, psychopedagogy, psychomotricity, physical education, sociodrama and expressive therapies.

Lima-Rodrigues has extensive experience organising international conferences, both in person and in digital environments. She is an international keynote speaker and teacher trainer, having delivered lectures and professional development in numerous countries, including Finland, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Scotland, Cape Verde, Argentina, Canada and others. In Portugal, she has trained hundreds of in-service teachers and was recognised as one of the highest-rated trainers at the Training Centre of the National Association of Teachers of Special Education.