Maria Grazia Rossi (PhD in Cognitive Science, 2012) works as a postdoc researcher at the NOVA University of Lisbon. Her current research focuses on the role of metaphors as argumentative tools in the context of healthcare communication. She is mainly working in two health contexts: chronic diseases, with a focus on diabetes communication, and assisted reproductive technology. In these contexts, she is promoting multidisciplinary through a cross-thematic approach integrating expertise coming from the fields of pragmatics, cognitive science, psychology, argumentation, and corpus linguistics.

Since her Ph.D., she has been interested in building a theoretical framework based on a pragmatic approach to communication and language. However, more than a philosophical approach per se, she has been interested in understanding how a theoretical approach to language could be used to address issues with a strong social and ethical relevance. She started working toward this objective during her postdoc at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart within thet Healthy Reasoning Project. During her previous post-doc and teaching positions at the University of Cagliari, she addressed theoretical issues related to the role played by emotions (in moral and political reasoning), and metaphors (in daily reasoning and decision-making). She has published a monograph, several articles, and edited books.

She is currently part of the Advisory Committee of the International Association for Communication in Healthcare and Deputy National Representative for Portugal within the same association. She organizes the annual conference “Caring discourse”, with the aim of promoting diverse national and international collaborations on topics related to communication in healthcare within academia and beyond.