Rafaela Xavier holds a Master?s degree in Art and Heritage (2020) from the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, with the dissertation Catalogação de azulejos hispano-mouriscos em Portugal: o Palácio Nacional de Sintra como estudo de caso (Cataloguing Hispano-Moresque azulejos in Portugal: the National Palace of Sintra as a case study).
She was awarded a PhD scholarship by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) to develop a thesis on 15th and 16th azulejos applied in Portugal. She is a member of ARTIS ? the Art History Institute of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon (FLUL) and of Az ? Azulejo Research Network, where she works on the projects Az Infinitum ? Azulejo Indexation and Referencing System and Cataloguing Portuguese Tile Patterns. Her research focuses mainly on patterned azulejos.