Maria Ana Baptista obtained a PhD in Physics – Specialty in Geophysics, from the University of Lisbon in 1998. In 2009, she received the Habilitation (Aggregation) title from the University of Lisbon. Her research topics are tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters. Presently, she integrates the COST Innovators Grant - Global Tsunami Model and the management committee of European Cost Action AGITHAR - Accelerating Global Science in Tsunami Hazard and Risk Analysis - a network to improve, standardize, and promote tsunami research. From 2020-2024, she was the president of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for implementing Tsunami Early Warning Systems in the Northeast Atlantic, Mediterranean and Adjacent Seas (ICG/NEAMTWS), a group of which she had been vice-president between 2007 and 2011. Since July 2019, she has been Vice-Chairman of the Joint Tsunami Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. She is an Executive Editor of the Natural Hazards and Earth Systems Science Journal and a Member of the journal Pure and Applied Geophysics editorial board. She has been a consultant to the Earthquake Monitoring Center of Sultan Qaboos University (EMC-SQU) for Tsunami Hazard Assessment studies, where she conducted several tsunami workshops.​