Dr. Ferreira graduated with distinction/honors from Jacksonville State University and top of his class from University of Porto (Portugal)  in 1988 with dual degrees (BSc/Licenciatura) in Biology. He was granted his PhD degree in Neurosciences in 1993 and the A.H. Ismail Interdisciplinary Program Doctoral Research Award from Purdue University, where under the mentorship of Dr. William L. Pak he identified and characterized mammalian and retinal homologs of Drosophila genes and proteins that are critical for light-mediated signaling, biogenesis of photoreceptor components, and neurodegeneration. He did postdoctoral training from 1994 to 1997 at Southwestern Medical Center (Neuroscience Center, Dallas, Texas),  where under the mentorship of Dr. Gabriel T. Travis  he expanded the scope of his graduate findings on the roles and mechanisms of chaperones in the biogenesis of G protein-coupled receptors. He established his laboratory with the help of an award from the Karl Kirchgessner Foundation and became a faculty of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1997. He arrived at Duke University Medical Center in 2005.

Dr. Ferreira was granted the Jules and Doris Stein Research to Prevent Blindness Professorship under the sponsorship of the Research to Prevent Blindness (2005-2012).  His  research programs have been funded  by the NIH since 1999. He was a NATO and SCIENCE (EC) postdoctoral and predoctoral fellow from 1990-1996.