Eda Freitas de Quadros was born in Brazil. She graduated in Civil Engineering in 1967 from the University of Pernambuco. She obtained her M.Sc. and her Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences at Polytechnic School of the São Paulo University, in 1982 and 1992, respectively.

In the period 1968-74, she worked in the field of soil mechanics and foundation engineering. In 1975, she joined the Technological Research Institute of the State of São Paulo (IPT), Brazil, where she was Assistant Researcher, Official Researcher, Senior Researcher, Head of the Rock Mechanics and Rock Hydraulics Laboratory (1994-1996; 2006-2011) and Head of the Rock Engineering Dept. (1996-98). Since 1978 she worked in the Hydrogeotechnical Section, renamed in 1994 Laboratory of Rock Mechanics and Rock Hydraulics. During this period she worked in the development of equipment, methods and techniques to characterize flow in rock joints and rock masses based on laboratory and field researches, including the anisotropic permeability tensors in rock masses applied to dam and mine engineering. From 2003 to 2011 she was Manager for some advanced research and equipment development for long-term elevated temperature creep and hollow cylinder tests in salt rocks for the Brazilian oil company Petrobras. She was Coordinator of the Petrobras Inter-Laboratory Net (2007-2011), a joint research project with IPT for study of off-shore pre-salt cap rocks. From 2011 to present, Dr. Quadros is Technical Director of BGTech Soil and Rock Engineering, a brazilian consultancy company in rock mechanics testing and rock hydraulics, located in São Paulo, Brazil.

From 1982 August to 1984 January, she stayed at the LNEC in Lisbon, Portugal, for rock mechanics and rock hydraulics studies, having also visited some Universities and Laboratories in Europe. 

She has taught flow and rock mechanics in advanced courses at the IPT, short courses at Universities and Institutes in Brazil, as well as post-graduation lectures. She participated in several Ph.D. and M.Sc. thesis juries and she has supervised many students at IPT. She has taught short courses on Engineering and Flow in Rock Masses (in collaboration with Dr Nick Barton) in Australia, China (Hong Kong, and Taiwan), Portugal, and Singapore. 

Dr Quadros has been a Member of ABMS National Council (Brazilian Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering) and President of the Brazilian Committee for Rock Mechanics (1989-1991). Within the ISRM, Dr Quadros has been a member of the ISRM Technical Commission on Testing Methods since 1985 and was Vice-President for South America during the term 2003-2007.