Joana Aymée Nogueira de Freitas is a legal historian specialising in women's history and notarial documents. She is currently a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, associated with the Comparing Early Modern Colonial Laws project. She graduated in Law and obtained her MSc Legal History from the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. 
In her dissertation on women’s legal history in colonial Brazil, titled “Mulheres, autonomia e posse de bens: entre gênero e direito na vila de Santa Cruz do Aracati (1778-1804)”, she developed a research on the possibility of women selling and buying goods in colonial Brazil, specifically in colonial Ceará, a captaincy in north eastern Brazil. Based on notarial documents, her research shows that women were able to sell, buy, donate and receive donations, without the participation of their husbands or fathers. The documents have shown that women from multiple civil status and social categories could participate in these deeds, presenting a more complex life than we have thought.

Freitas current PhD project investigates the circulation of notarial documents throughout the Portuguese Empire.