Catarina Leão, a researcher at the Research Centre of the Institute for Political Studies (CIEP) of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, won the Portuguese Political Science Association 2025 Prize for the best doctoral thesis entitled ‘Autocratic Legacies and Immunisation Against Extremism: A Rational Choice Approach’. 

An alumna of the Master's Degree in Governance, Leadership and Democracy Studies at the Institute for Political Studies of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and the Bachelor's Degree in Management at the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, she completed her PhD at Oxford, defending her thesis in 2023.

She worked as a researcher as part of CIEP's participation in the project ‘Budget, Economy and Democracy’, funded by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, and taught the seminar ‘Autocratic Legacies and Support for the Past after Democratisation’ in 2023 at IEP.

Catarina Leão is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po in Paris, and is also an Associate Researcher at CIEP.