Maria João Baltazar earned a five-year BA degree in Communication Design from the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Porto in 2001 and was awarded the António de Almeida Prize for best degree student. In 2004, she completed a postgraduate course in Photographic Studies at IADE – Institute of Art, Design and Marketing. With a scholarship from FCT – Science and Technology Foundation, she earned an MPhil in Design and Visual Culture at the IADE College of Design in 2007. She was awarded a FCT doctoral scholarship and earned a Ph.D. in Art Studies from the University of Aveiro in 2015.

She wrote O Olhar Moderno: A Fotografia enquanto Objecto e Memória (2009), and the book Design Português 1940-1949 (2015) in the Design Português collection. She has regularly published on design and visual culture in peer-reviewed publications, including: Photography and Cinema: 50 Years of Chris Marker’s La Jetée, Cambridge Scholar Publishers (2015); Revista Kepes, Departamento de Diseño Visual de la Universidad de Caldas (2015); Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2008, 2009, 2010). She frequently takes part in conferences on design and visual culture, such as: Roland Barthes at 100 International Conference, Cardiff University (2015); 6th Global Conference, Visual Literacies: Exploring critical issues, Oxford (2012); 3rd International Forum of Design as a Process, “Innovation in Design Education,” Politecnico di Torino (2011).

She has been a lecturer at ESAD – College of Arts and Design since 2000 and is responsible for and teaches the Art and Design History and Design and Visual Culture curricular units at this college.