Catarina Almeida is leading CD1-research at the Doherty Institute / University of Melbourne with 13 years of experience in Unconventional T cell- research, including a MSc-University of Lisbon/IMM in Portugal 2009 (with Prof Luis Graça), and a PhD-University of Melbourne, Australia 2015 (with Prof Dale Godfrey). Almeida has been instrumental in revealing greater diversity than previously assumed amongst type 2 NKT cells, which recognise lipids bound by CD1d but not  a-GalCer, and do not express the type 1 NKT invariant TRAV10-TRAJ18 rearrangements. She has pioneered the development and use of tools that are revealing novel NKT populations, the TCRs they use and the antigens they see, which is providing valuable insight into the function and therapeutic potential of these cells.