Maria Joaquina Coelho Soares (born 1953) is a Portuguese archaeologist, director of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Setúbal District of Portugal and former professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the NOVA University Lisbon.

Soares was born on 15 January 1953 in Torrão in the Alcácer do Sal municipality, an area in which, from the late 19th-century, the archaeologist, José Leite de Vasconcelos identified many early settlements.

Other conferences she organized include one on the production and trade of fish preparations on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula during protohistory and the Roman period, and one on the prehistory of wetlands salt landscapes[1][2][4] Soares has authored or co-authored more than one hundred journal articles and has authored, co-authored or edited eleven books.

[1][2][3] Soares was a researcher and teacher at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities NOVA University between 2009 and 2013, teaching courses on prehistory and protohistory.

In that year she was elected director of the League of Friends of Setúbal and Azeitão (LASA), a non-profit regional association geared towards the defence and dissemination of cultural, environmental and social heritage from a regional-development perspective.