Rui M. Ponte was born in Lajes do Pico, Açores, on the 29th of February 1960. His main research area is Physical Oceanography and his broader interests include Climate and Earth Sciences. He is currently a Senior Staff Scientist and Manager of the Oceanography Group at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., a company with more than 30 years of existence located in Lexington, MA, which he joined in 1989.

He has served as an investigator on NASA's Earth Observing System Project; he is a science team member on NASA-CNES altimeter missions (TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1) and on the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission. In addition, Rui Ponte also serves as a member of IAU/IUGG Working Group on Non-Rigid Earth Nutation Theory, IAG Special Study Group on Interactions of the Earth's Rotational Dynamics with the Oceans and Atmospheres, and IERS Special Bureau for the Ocean.

He completed his B.Sc. in Physics at the University of Rhode Island in 1982, and his M.S. in Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985. In 1988, he achieved the degree of PhD in Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and in the next year (1988-89) he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. In March 1989 he joined Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. where he has been ever since.