Irene Fonseca

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Irene Fonseca was born in Lisbon, July 10, 1956. Her research interests lie in the areas of continuum mechanics, calculus of variations, geometric measure theory and partial differential equations. Her recent work has been focused on the search for effective or relaxed energies, and on the study of existence, regularity, oscillatory and hysteretic behavior of solutions of (non convex) variational problems associated with materials instabilities, nucleation and growth of phases, the formation of islands (quantum dots), fracture and defects in solids, etc.

The applications which guide her in this program arise from the analysis of mathematical models for computer vision and imaging, as well as for novel man-made materials such as shape memory alloys, ferroelectric, magnetic and magnetostrictive materials, composites, liquid crystals, and thin films. According to Irene Fonseca “mathematical challenges lie in the description of the dynamics and evolution of microscopic structures and of phenomena that occur at vastly different temporal or spatial scales!” And this requires recently developed mathematical tools and the introduction of new mathematical techniques, she says.

She is currently a Full Professor at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, holds the Chair of Mellon College of Science and is also the Director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis.

She received her Licenciatura in Mathematics at University of Lisbon in July 1980 and at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis she received her Master of Science in August 1983 and, exactly two years later, in 1985, the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D). Through 1985-1987 she took a Postdoc in Paris VI (Paris, France) and at the École Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France).

She went to the US to get her PhD, and choose the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis because her brother-in-law Manuel Ricou was already there, with her sister, pursuing his own PhD in Mathematics. She was awarded a Fullbright travel fellowship and a Gulbenkian fellowship that covered her tuition and stipend during the 4 years of her training.

She has written around 90 articles, a significant part of them in collaboration with other researchers, and since in mathematics authors are listed in alphabetical order, she often doesn’t comes as the first author. She has also co-written two books in collaboration with two other fellow colleagues.

After her postdoc training, in 1987 she came to the US as an assistant Professor of the Department of Mathematical Sciences in Carnegie Mellon University, and has remained there since then. Nowadays she is a Principal Investigator in her individual National Science Foundation grant and is also the Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation award that funds the Center for Nonlinear Analysis.

She is currently supervising two PhD students and mentoring one postdoc, however as Director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis, she helps to coordinate the activities of the Center that counts with 3 Postdocs and 16 other permanent faculty members.

Irene Fonseca is also dedicated to promoting mathematical studies beyond the undergraduate years, which she achieves by explaining to undergraduates the opportunities they have if they pursued graduated studies and research, and in addition she makes an effort in forming affiliations with other institutions to collaborate and to establish a network on an international level, aiming to provide the maximum amount of opportunities to these students in the future.

Her objectives are to sustain and enhance the visibility and scientific impact of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis at Carnegie Mellon University, as a research center for the development of new theories and the training at the frontier of applied mathematics. Although, part of her objectives are as well “to contribute to the bridging of the Portuguese scientific communities abroad and in Portugal. The latter seats at the core of the mission of the Forum Internacional de Investigadores Portugueses (FIIP)”, she says.

Since 1994, she furthermore makes part of the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) where she coordinates the evaluation panel of the investigation centers and projects in Mathematics.

Irene Fonseca says her international reputation is due in part to her contributions to the area of the Calculus of Variations, somewhat more active in Europe than in the USA, and to the role she plays in the leadership of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis. According to Roy Nicolaides, head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, “Irene repeatedly puts the department at the forefront of significant activity in applied mathematics and also has a talent for identifying potential leaders in applied mathematics”.

She has not been invited to return to Portugal.

AWARDS

Grande Oficial da Ordem Militar de Sant'Iago da Espada (Portuguese

Decoration, March 8 1997 by former President Jorge Sampaio)

"Women of Distinction Award in Math and Technology" in 2004

AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecturer for 2006

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Sérgio Rebelo

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Sérgio Rebelo was born in Viseu, Portugal, on the 29th October, 1959. His major areas of research are Macroeconomics and International Finance. He is currently the Tokai Bank Distinguished Professor of International Finance at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He received a  “Licenciatura” in Economics from the Portuguese Catholic University, a Masters in Operations Research from Instituto Superior Técnico, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rochester in the U.S.

He left Portugal for the United States because the research environment and support is much better in the United States. His advisors in Portugal were António Pinto Barbosa and Aníbal Cavaco Silva (nowadays the Presidente of Portuguese Republic). Without their encouragement Rebelo would never have gone to the U.S. for a Ph.D. He received financial support from the University of Rochester, the JNICT (Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica), the Fullbright Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.
 
Rebelo feels immensely lucky because he was able to start doing research as a first year Ph.D. student with his advisor, Robert G. King. They ended up writing many papers together. It was through this collaboration that  Professor Rebelo learned how to do research.
 
His first job was at Northwestern University. After two years at Northwestern he decided to return to Portugal, to the Portuguese Catholic University and the Bank of Portugal. Two years later Rebelo received the Olin Fellowship at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which allowed him to spend a full year doing research at the NBER in Boston.
 
While he was in Boston, the University of Rochester offered him a tenured position. At this point he was discouraged with the prospects for being able to continue a full-time research career in Portugal, so he accepted. Later, the University of Northwestern offered him the Tokai chair and he accepted. Moving to a different university was always motivated by the conditions offered (teaching load, research support, access to Ph.D. students, and salary).
 
Sérgio Rebelo has received support from the National Science Foundation, other foundations, and the World Bank. He usually works closely with one or two Ph.D. student.
 
His scientific dream is to help discover answers to important questions such as what drives economic growth, what causes business cycles, and what causes financial crises. These are phenomena that affect the lives of millions of people. His current work studies large exchange rate devaluations and currency speculation episodes.
 
He has worked in three different areas. He studied the effect of economic policy on the rate of economic growth, worked on business cycle models and, more recently, has worked on currency crises.
 
Sérgio Rebelo received the Alfred P. Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and the Ohlin Fellowship. He is a fellow of the two most important research networks in Economics, the National Bureau of Economic Research, in the U.S. and the Center for Economic Policy Research in Europe. He has also been an associate editor for major economics journals, including the American Economic Review, the European Economic Review, and the Journal of Monetary Economics.
 
Professor Rebelo has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the European Central Bank, the McKinsey Global Institute, and other organizations.
 
He has been offered both academic and non-academic positions in Portugal. But he would like to continue doing research and the conditions offered by Portuguese institutions pale in comparison with those offered in the United States. During many years he waited for an offer that would allow him to return to Portugal and continue a full-time  research career. Currently he would be happy if there was an institutional arrangement that would allow him to spend some time working in Portugal.

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Alfredo Marvão Pereira

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Alfredo Marvão Pereira was born in March 24, 1956, in Lisbon, Portugal. His major area of research is Economics with particular interests in the fields of public finance and development economics. His current research activities focus on social security reform and infrastructure and economic development. He is currently the Thomas Arthur Vaughn Professor of Economics with the Department of Economics of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Before completing his M.A.(1986), and Ph.D. in Economics (1988) at Stanford University, he received Bacharelato (1976) and Licenciatura (1978) degrees in Economics from the Technical University of Lisbon.

He went to the US in 1982 as a graduate student under the Fulbright Program to work on his Ph.D. in Economics with the full support of the Department of Economics of the New University of Lisbon. In particular, professors Alfredo de Sousa, Diogo Lucena, António Borges and Jorge Braga de Macedo where instrumental in his going to the US. His financial support came from the Fulbright Program, The New University of Lisbon, and Stanford University.

Alfredo Marvão Pereira has published 60 articles in refereed journal and he has currently about 15 working papers under way. In addition he has published six books on technical issues all of them relating to economic policy issues in Portugal.

Since his arrival in USA he moved from Stanford University to UC San Diego and then to The College of William and Mary following this course: 

Thomas Arthur Vaughn Jr. Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, The College of William and Mary, Sept 2001-present.
Professor, Department of Economics, The College of William and Mary, Sept 1995-Aug 2001.

-Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, UC San Diego, July 1987-Aug 1995 (moved due to an offer of a promotion to Full Professor - skipping over the level of associate - and substantially better financial conditions)

-Instructor, Department of Economics, Stanford University, Sept 1985-July 1987 (moved due to a permanent position upon completion of Ph.D.)

In addition, to his regular academic positions, he has served as consultant/advisor for the Commission of the European Communities, the European Central Bank, the World Bank, the Bank of Portugal and the Portuguese Ministry of Finance.

Alfredo Marvão Pereira is an independent researcher with two projects under way as the principal investigator. He is currently supervising two Ph.D. students and has three other researchers directly under his supervision.

As objective he wants to apply modern economic thought to relevant economic policy issues, in particular of relevance for the Portuguese economy. As scientific dream he would like one day to publish his collected works applied to the Portuguese case.

He is mostly known as an applied economist who uses top modern theoretical, econometric and numerical techniques to analyze real life public finance and development issues. «The common denominator of my work is the focus on the intertemporal or dynamic nature of the economic issues. Furthermore, I have done a very large number of research papers on Portuguese economic issues», Marvão Pereira says.

In his memory there’s a special coin to the promotion to Full Professor from Assistant Professor under the age of 40 years old, an highly unusual occurrence both in terms of skipping the associate step and the age of promotion. He is member of the Editorial Board of the Review of International Economics and the Portuguese Economics Journal.

Alfredo Marvão Pereira was already invited to return to Portugal, first formally right after the completion of his doctoral work: «I did not accept because I did not feel that I would be able to pursue my research career in a manner that would be internationally recognized if I were to return to Portugal. In more recent years I was several times approached informally but the contacts never went too far both because of my not being available at the moment and the difficulties with the way the academic careers are set up in Portugal».

Consulting Experience

Institute for Development Studies, Portugal, March 2005-present

Portuguese-American Foundation, Jan 2001-present.
Research Department, Ministry of Finance, Portugal, Jan 1999-Dec 2001, Summer 2002, Summer 2003.

European Central Bank, March 2001-Dec 2001, Sept 2002-March 2003.
Ministry of Planning, Portugal, Jan 1999-Dec 2000.
Forum of Business Administrators, Portugal, Jan 1998-Dec 1998.
Research Department, Bank of Portugal, June 1998-Aug 1998.
Directorate General for Regional Development, Portugal, Sept 1997-Dec 1997.
Research Department, Ministry of Finance, Portugal, May 1997-Dec 1997.
Research Department, Bank of Portugal, April 1997-Sept 1997.
Research Department, Ministry of Finance, Portugal, Sept 1996-Dec 1996.
Forum of Business Administrators, Portugal, Nov 1995-Dec 1996.
Directorate General for Regional Development, Portugal, Jan 1996-Dec 1996.
Research Department, Bank of Portugal, March 1995, Jan 1996-Dec 1996.
Public Economics Division, The World Bank, Sept 1994-Dec 1994 DG-XVI.
Commission of European Communities, Belgium, Dec. 1993-Dec 1994.
Research Department, Ministry of Finance, Portugal, Jan 1990-Dec 1993
DG-XXII, Commission of European Communities, Belgium, Jan 1991-Dec 1992.
Secretariat of State for Fiscal Affairs, Portugal, Jan 1989-Dec 1990.
Secretariat of State for Economic Development, Portugal, Sept 1989-April 1990

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João Hespanha

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

 

João Hespanha was born in Coimbra, October 13, 1968. His research interests concerns electrical engineering and automatic control field. He is Associate Professor at the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He received the licenciatura and M.S. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal, in 1991 and 1993, respectively and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and applied science from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1994 and 1998, respectively.   He  was a  visiting Post-doctoral research engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA from 1998 to 1999. From 1999 to 2001, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

He went to the United States in 1993 to pursue a PhD degree at Yale University, where he had no specific contact, but was offered a University fellowship that covered his tuition and a fraction of his living expenses. Initially, he also had a fellowship for the Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica (JNICT).

 From 1996 to the present he authored numerous papers with multiple collaborations: co-edited two books, wrote 14 book chapters, about 40 journal papers, and over 100 conference papers. Most of these papers were co-authored with colleagues or students.  An  updated list of his papers can be found at the following url:

http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~hespanha/published.html

João Hespanha started his research at IST with Prof. Antonio Pascoal. He encouraged him to pursue a PhD abroad so he applied to Yale University. His PhD program at Yale started in 1993 and finished in December 1998. At that time, he applied to a faculty position at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, USA and was offered an Assistant professor position starting in 1999. This gave him a year to do post-doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, before he started teaching at USC. Although he was not planning to leave USC, in 2001 he received an offer for an Associate Professor position at the University of California, Santa Barbara. So, he moved in January 2002 and have been here since then.

João Hespanha is the principal investigator in several projects and we present the list of the projects that he has participated in (decreasing order of end date). In several of those projects he had co-investigators also indicated in the list that follows:

1.     “Cooperative Control of UAVs for Tracking Moving Targets Through Information Gain.” Funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through Toyon Research Corporation, Oct. 2005–Oct. 2007 (coPI: Bassam Bamieh).

2.     “Infinite-Dimensional Stochastic Hybrid Systems: A Unified Framework for Distributed Control with Limited and Disrupted Communication.” Funded by NSF, Aug. 2003–Jul. 2007 (coPI: Andrew Teel).

3.     “Decentralized Computation and Control in Large-Scale Networks.” Funded by the Army Research Office through the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, Oct. 2005–Sep. 2006 (coPI: Upamanyu Madhow).

4.     “Stochastic Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Sensor and Biochemical Networks.” Funded by the Army Research Office through the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, Oct. 2005–Sep. 2006 (PI: Mustafa Khammash).

5.     “Switching and Logic in Control.” NSF CAREER award, July 2001–July 2006.

6.     “Collaborative Research: A Hybrid Systems Framework for Scalable Analysis and Design of Communications Networks.” Funded by NSF, Aug. 2003–Jul. 2006.

7.     “A Robust Stability and Control Theory for Hybrid Dynamical Systems.” Funded by the Army Research Office, Jun. 2003–Jun. 2006 (PI: Andrew Teel).

8.     “Control of Cooperative Engagements with Robust and Distributed Optimization.” Funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through Toyon Research Corporation, Aug. 2005–Apr. 2006.

9.     “Stochastic Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Sensor and Biochemical Networks.” Funded by the Army Research Office through the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, Feb. 2005–Feb. 2006 (PI: Mustafa Khammash).

10. “Cooperative Control of UAV’s for Tracking Moving Targets Through Information Gain.” Funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through Toyon Research Corporation, Sep. 2004–Jun. 2005 (coPI: Bassam Bamieh).

11. “Development of the Modeling and Simulation Tools for Guided Airdrop Systems.” Funded by the Naval Post-graduate School, Sep. 2004–Dec. 2004.

12. “Localization of Ground Threats for a Temporal Evaluation Model for Mobile Profiled Threats.” Funded by the Office of Naval Research through SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego, CA, Sep. 2003–Apr. 2004.

13. “Real-Time Mixed-Initiative Cooperative Path Planning in Uncertain Environments.” Funded by DARPA/IXO MICA-Mixed Initiative Control of Automa-teams Program, Oct. 2003–Jan. 2004.

14. “Probabilistic Mapping and Distributed Cooperative Mission Planning.” Funded by DARPA/IXO MICAMixed Initiative Control of Automa-teams Program through Honeywell Laboratories, Nov. 2001–Sep. 2003.

15. “Probabilistic Mapping for Mobile Profiled Target Sets.” Funded by SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego, CA, Aug. 2002–Feb. 2003.

16. “Advanced Mathematical Control and Identification Techniques for Autonomic Information Assurance.” Funded by DARPA/ISO Information Assurance and Survivability Program, July 2000–June 2002. Joint grant with faculty from the Dept. of Mathematics and the Information Sciences Institute.

17. “Pursuit-Evasion Strategies for Multi-Agent Teams.” Funded by Office of Naval Research through the Univ. California at Berkeley, May 2000–May 2002.

18. “Integrated Media Systems Center.” Funded by NSF (ERC), July 1996–Dec. 2001. Joint grant with faculty from Engineering, Music, Cinema/TV, Communications, and Education.

19. “Vision-Based Control of Robots.” Funded by the James H. Zumberge Fund, July 2000-June 2001.

20. “Coordination of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.” Funded by Office of Naval Research through the Univ. California at Berkeley, Sep. 1999–Sep. 2000.

21. “Probabilistic Models for Agile Control of Military Operations.” Funded by DARPA/ISO JFACC Program through Honeywell Technology Center and the Univ. California at Berkeley, Sep. 1999–Feb. 2000.

The size of his research group varies. He has currently 4 PhD students and co-advises 3 more students. At the moments he has no  Post-Doctoral students. He graduated 3 PhD students: two of these work in research companies and the third is an assistant professor. Two more students are scheduled to graduate in the  summer of 2006 .

«My main dream is to be able to continue to do what I have been doing in the past few years. I enjoy the excitement provided by scientific research and I like teaching at the University. The least pleasant part of what I do is the constant need to search for research funding. I could do without this part of my work», João Hespanha says.

He also explains the main reason  for wich he is recognized in  the scientific community: «I am mostly known by my work on Automatic Control using algorithms based on logic and switching to control physical systems, such as aircraft, helicopters, mobile robots, etc». Until this moment he received no formal invitations to return to Portugal.

Awards:

1.     2005 Automatica Theory/Methodology best paper prize for the 2002-2004 period with the paper “J. P. Hespanha and A. S. Morse. Switching between stabilizing controllers. Automatica, 38(11), Nov. 2002.” This prize is awarded once every three years by the International Federation of Automatic Control to the best theory/methodology paper published in the previous three years in the journal Automatica.

2.     Best paper award at the 2nd Int. Conf. on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing with: “P. Barooah and J. P. Hespanha. Estimation from relative measurements: Error bounds from electrical analogy. In Proc. of the 2nd Int. Conf. on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing, Jan. 2005.” This prize is awarded once every year to the best paper presented at the ICISIP.

3.     Plenary speaker at the 5th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control (Controlo 2002), University of Aveiro, September 5, 2002. Talk entitled “Switched Systems: Mixing Logic with Differential Equations.”

4.     Elected to the grade of Senior Member at the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), June 2002.

5.     Recipient of NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, Jul. 2001. The CAREER award is NSF’s most prestigious honor for junior faculty members.

6.     Listed in USC’s Faculty Honor Roll, Fall 1999. The faculty honor roll distinguishes faculty that obtained exceptional scores in teaching evaluations.

7.     Recipient of Yale University’s Henry Prentiss Becton Graduate Prize for exceptional achievement in research in Engineering and Applied Science, May 1999. J. P. Hespanha. Logic-Based Switching Algorithms in Control. PhD Thesis, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1998.

8.     Member of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, 1998. hespanha at ece.ucsb.edu

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Mário Vieira

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Mário Vieira

Mário Vieira was born in Lagos, Portugal. He is interested in physical oceanography, estuarine and coastal circulation and dynamics, and environmental interactions. Currently he is an Associate Professor at the Oceanography Department of the US Naval Academy, but by the end of this school year (summer 2007) he will be retiring.

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Luís M. A. Bettencourt

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Luís M. A. Bettencourt

Luís M. A. Bettencourt was born in Lisbon, September 29, 1969. His research training comprises expertise in the areas of Complex Systems, Non-linear Dynamics, Statistical Physics and Applied Mathematics. He carries multidisciplinary research in the structure and dynamics of several complex systems, with an emphasis on dynamical problems in biology and society. He is currently a Technical Staff Member (Research Scientist) at the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos NM.

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Maria Madalena Ferreira

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Maria Madalena Ferreira

Maria Madalena Ferreira was born in Pinho-Boticas on April 4th 1955. Her scientific interests lie in the area of Science Education, mainly research on equity issues (gender in particular) in science education. Her research has been primarily focused on the social contexts of education and how the culture of educational organizations facilitates or limits access to knowledge. Currently she is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Science Education Program at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.



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Onésimo Teotónio Almeida

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Onésimo Teotónio Almeida

Onésimo T. (Teotónio) Almeida was born in Pico da Pedra, S. Miguel, Azores, December 18,1946. Onésimo paraphrased a well-known line: “I am not a scientist and I do not even play one on TV”. Giving in to much insistence and being reminded that the term ‘science’ in Portugal is much broader than in the English-speaking world, the acclaimed humanist accepted to participate in this initiative of “Ciência Hoje”.

His PhD dissertation was in Philosophy of the Social Sciences, more specifically, its subject was the concept of ideology. “Since my adolescent years I had felt that the understanding of the concept was a must since in the 60’s and early 70’s there was a huge debate on the topic”, he reminds. In the course of writing his thesis, he realized that the real issue was broader, or deeper, and that the concept of worldview was more interesting and fruitful. “It boarded on key questions in epistemology and axiology”, he says and an interest in them has stayed with him ever since.

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John M. Lopes

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

John M. Lopes

John M. Lopes was born in Coimbra on June 24, 1961. His specific area of research is in understanding regulation of gene expression. Most genes are “turned on” or “turned off” in response to specific situations such as a change in the environment or different stages of development, and this is referred to as regulation of gene expression. In specific cases, inappropriate regulation can lead to disease states such as cancer. Consequently, understanding the mechanisms that regulate gene expression is tantamount to understanding the causes of diseases.


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Eduardo Paiva Raposo

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Eduado P. Raposo

Eduardo Paiva Raposo was born in Lisbon, Portugal, October 24, 1949. His area of work is Linguistics, with specializations in theoretical linguistics, syntax and semantics, generative grammar, Portuguese and Romance morpho-syntax. Currently he is a Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of California, Santa Barbara. And there, in the US, he is better known solely by the name Eduardo P. Raposo.



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João Camilo dos Santos

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

João Camilo dos Santos

João Camilo dos Santos was born in 1943 in Salgueiro do Campo, Castelo Branco. He completed his “licenciatura” in Romance Philology at the Universidade Clássica de Lisboa in 1968. In 1983 he earned his ”Doctorat d'Etat” at the Université de Haute Bretagne in Rennes, France. He lived and taught in France between 1973 and 1989 (teaching at the universities of Rennes, Aix-en-Provence, Grenoble). Before teaching in France, João Camilo was a Portuguese Lecturer at the University of Oslo between 1969 and 1973.

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Tiago V. Maia

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Tiago V. Maia

Tiago V. Maia was born in Lisbon, Portugal on the 22nd of March 1971. His research is highly interdisciplinary, being situated at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, and computer science. He uses advanced computational and mathematical techniques to build models of brain circuits, which he then uses to explain both neural activation findings (e.g., from neuroimaging) and behavioral findings in psychology and psychiatry. He also conducts experimental work in these areas. Specific areas of emphasis include emotion (particularly fear and anxiety), psychopathology (particularly obsessive-compulsive disorder), conditioning, and decision-making.

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Paulo Tabuada

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Paulo Tabuada

Paulo Tabuada was born in Lisboa on the 19th of April 1975. His scientific interests are related with the modern systems theory and cover a wide range of topics, which include modeling, analysis and control of real-time, embedded and networked control systems, geometrical nonlinear control and mathematical systems theory.

Currently he is an Assistant Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and he is also affiliated with the UCLA Center for Systems, Dynamics and Control.

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João Morais-Cabral

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

João Morais-Cabral

João Cabral, or João Morais-Cabral (the other name for which he is known) was born on the 22nd of April 1965 in Coimbra, Portugal. His work-studies comprehend membrane protein structure and function. In particular, he is interested in the movement of ions, metabolites and macromolecules through membranes - lipid barriers essential for the survival of all cellular organisms. Therefore, he studies the proteins that have evolved to mediate the transport processes.


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Antónia Monteiro

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Antónia Monteiro

 Antónia Monteiro was born in Glasgow, Scotland in March 18th 1969. Her research is focused on the evolution of developmental mechanisms, evolution of butterfly wing patterns, sexual selection, natural selection, species recognition in butterflies and functional genetics using transgenic approaches.

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Vasco M Barreto

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Vasco Barreto

 Vasco Barreto was born on February 27th 1971. His area of interest is Immunology, particularly somatic recombination, DNA stability and evolution. Currently he is a research associate in the Lab of Michel Nussenzweig at the Rockefeller University. He concluded his Degree in Biology at the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, in 1994 and in 1996, a "Masters" from the Programa Gulbenkian of Doutoramento in Biology and Medicine. In 2001 he finished his Ph.D. degree in Immunology at the Université de Paris VI, France. And then he went to the Rockefeller University, and did a Postdoc between 2001 and 2005.

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Nando de Freitas

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Nando de Feitas

Nando de Freitas was born in Zimbabwe on May 19, 1970, as João Ferdinando Gomes de Freitas. He grew up in Mocambique, Portugal, Venezuela and South Africa, and currently lives in Vancouver, Canada. His area of work is machine learning, Bayesian statistics and artificial intelligence “I conduct research on complex, structured stochastic systems. I am particularly interested in learning models and information processes to improve our understanding of these systems and to make appropriate decisions under uncertainty. Though my research is widely applicable, I am drawn to the study of cognitive systems”, he says.


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Gloria C. Ferreira

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Glória C. Ferreira

Gloria C. Ferreira was born in Agueda, on March 18th 1958. Her general research areas are Biochemistry and Molecular Biolgy, and her specific research relates to heme biosynthesis. Her primary interest is the study of the enzymatic and regulation mechanisms of heme biosynthesis, which impact on the understanding and development of therapies and diagnoses of disorders associated with the heme biosynthetic pathway, and in her laboratory they are implementing new biotechnologies having heme, heme precursors or heme-containing compounds as starting materials


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João Ascensão

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

João L. Ascensão was born in Maputo, Moçambique on July 6th, 1948.
His research areas are natural killer cell ontogeny and clinical studies in multiple myeloma.
Currently he holds a position as Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology at the George Washington University, School of Medicine, but he is also the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program in this institution and is an assistant chief of Hematology at Veterans Administration Medical Center in Washington, D.C.


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Joana C. Silva

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Joana C. Silva

Joana C. Silva was born on July 1st, 1968 in Lisboa. Her area of expertise is evolutionary genetics, and her research interests fall into three broad areas: the mechanisms and evolutionary forces that shape genome evolution, the study of genes involved in host-parasite interactions and the study of transposable elements. To this effect she uses the rationale and tools of molecular evolution and comparative genomics. Most of her current research is based on genome evolution of single-celled parasites in the phylum Apicomplexa, which includes the causative agents of diseases such as malaria and cryptosporidiosis in humans, and East Coast Fever in cattle.

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Madalena Costa

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Madalena Costa

Madalena Costa was born in Lisbon, November 15, 1969. The driving general theme of her academic career has been to understand the nonlinear dynamics and fundamental mechanisms of complex systems. Her specific focus is in biomedical applications, including the development of methods to quantify multiscale properties of complex signals, models of physiologic control that account for these properties under healthy conditions and their changes with pathology and aging, and novel clinical indexes for risk stratification and monitoring of pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions. Her work is, hence, at the interdisciplinary crossroads of contemporary physics, bioengineering, physiology, biology and bedside medicine.


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Jonas Almeida

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Jonas Almeida

Jonas S. Almeida was born in Lisbon in 1966, but his family moved to Angola during his early childhood, and then Mozambique after the independence, which is why he says, “That is still where I feel that my place of origination is. I am, and will remain, a “retornado” (derogatory description in the late 70s and 80s for those that the end of the colonial period regurgitated back to the shores of the lusitan garden)”.

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Pedro Domingos

FLAD and the Portuguese Scientists in America

Pedro Domingos

Pedro Domingos was born in Lisbon on August 2, 1965.

His areas of research and major interest are machine learning, artificial intelligence and data mining, and the goal of his research is to design computers that program themselves by looking at examples of their desired input-output behavior, instead of having to be programmed by the user – essentially, computers that do more with less help from the user. Pedro Domingos says, “This will overcome the current bottleneck that is writing software by hand, take automation to the next level, and make many things possible that would otherwise not be economically feasible. For example, without machine learning, the analysis of the massive (and growing) amounts of scientific data being produced each day would be severely limited by the available scientific manpower.”


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