Maria Eduarda Pereira Mascarenhas holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences (2017–2021) from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. During her undergraduate studies, she worked as a volunteer research student at the Malaria Laboratory of UFMG (2017–2018) and later as a CNPq/FIOCRUZ scholarship holder in the Molecular Biology and Immunology of Malaria (BMIM) research group at the René Rachou Institute (IRR), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ-MG), Brazil (2019–2021).

She obtained her MSc in Health Sciences (2022–2024) from IRR/FIOCRUZ-MG, supported by a CAPES scholarship. Her master’s research focused on the evaluation of rapid diagnostic tests for Plasmodium falciparum malaria, with emphasis on estimating deletion rates and assessing the genetic variability of the pfhrp2 gene.

In 2024, she worked as a Technical Support Fellow in the BMIM research group at IRR, funded by Fiotec, contributing to the development of non-invasive approaches for molecular malaria diagnosis. She is currently a PhD candidate in Health Sciences at IRR/FIOCRUZ-MG (2024–present), supported by a CAPES doctoral scholarship. Her doctoral research investigates the dynamics of coinfections caused by Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum and their implications for malaria transmission and treatment.

As part of her doctoral training, she is undertaking a research stay (2025–2026) at ICVS, University of Minho, Portugal, funded by FAPEMIG. She is affiliated with the PEvoGen group. Her research experience focuses on molecular biology, malaria, molecular diagnosis, genetic variability, and drug resistance.