Faria is from Belém. She studied physics at the University of São Paulo. She worked with Vanderlei Bagnato on cold matter and atom trapping. Her masters dissertation considered magneto-optical traps. She joined the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy in Berlin, where she was supervised by Wolfgang Sandner. Faria joined the Max Planck Institute for Physics in 1999. She held postdoctoral positions at TU Wien, Leibniz University Hannover and Max Born Institute. Her early work considered the time profiles of high harmonic generation.