Ana is a Research Professor of Education at Tufts University and a co-Principal Investigator for the Poincaré Institute. She received her B.A. and License in Education from the Federal University of Pernambuco, a License in Psychology from the University of Lyon (France), and a Maîtrise in Psychology from the University of Paris (Sorbonne and Institut de Psychologie).  She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of London (University College), UK.

Ana worked for 20 years at the Federal University of Pernambuco, in Recife, Brazil and was a Fulbright Scholar at LRDC-University of Pittsburgh (1986). Her work on everyday mathematics has been published in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese.  At Tufts (since 1994), her research focus on children’s early algebraic reasoning and on classroom activities designed to explore the algebraic character of arithmetic in elementary school. She is equally at home in Mathematics Education, Developmental Psychology, and Cross-Cultural Psychology.