Joana Lobo Antunes is professor of Science and Engineering Communication, Department of Engineering in Mineral and Energy Resources, Instituto Superior Técnico, since 2025. She is also Deputy Director for the President in Communication, Image and Marketing. She has been invited professor in Science Communication at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2012-2025), where she was also post-doctoral researcher in Promotion and Administration of Science and Technology (2012-2015). She was appointed Executive Director at Centro Ciência Viva de Sintra (2014-2016), and Head of Communications at ITQB NOVA (2016-2019). Founder and former President of Portuguese Science Communicators Network SciComPT, Joana has also led several awarded Science Communication projects such as science radio show 90 Segundos de Ciência and podcast, book and exhibition 110 histórias, 110 objetos.

Mónica Oliveira is Full Professor in Decision Sciences at the Engineering and Management Department of IST and coordinates the the Decision Science and Management Engineering group (DECISING) of the Centre for Management Studies of IST (CEGIST). Her research interests include the development of management science models to assist policy and decision makers in health and clinical settings, with a special interest in multi-criteria value modelling using participatory processes. Her work, enhancing and applying management science techniques in multiple organizations, has been recognised by several awards, including by the INFORMS DAS and Society of Decision Professionals 2023 Decision Practice award. She has published her research in Operations Research, Management Science, and Health Economics, Policy and Management international journals. She has been leading national and international research projects mostly developed in collaboration with industry, has been involved in advisory boards from the Portuguese Ministry of Health, and has coordinated redeSAÚDE ULisboa between 2021-2024. She has a Licenciatura in Economics from the University of Porto (1997) and a MSc and a PhD in Operational Research by the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) (1999 and 2003).

Bruno Miguel Soares Gonçalves is graduated in Physics Engineering by Instituto Superior Técnico (1997), has a Master in Physics (IST/UTL, 2000) and a PhD in Physics Engineering (IST/UTL, 2003). In 2005 his PhD thesis was distinguished with the “European Physical Society Plasma Division PhD Research Award”. In February 2012 he has got his Habilitation for Coordination of Science degree (“Habilitação para o Exercício de Funções de Coordenação Científica em Engenharia Física Tecnológica”).

Bruno Soares Gonçalves is Full Researcher at the Instituto Superior Técnico, President of the Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (since May 2012) and responsible for the Engineering and Systems Integration Group of IPFN. He has led several research projects in the areas of development of diagnostics for nuclear fusion devices and of control systems and data acquisition. He is co-inventor of 8 granted patents, co-author of one chapter in a book, in one hundred and thirty five papers published in international journals and in sixty two papers published in international conference proceedings. He is a member of several international scientific committees of conferences in the field, the national delegate on the Governing Board of Eurofusion and national delegate on the Governing Board of Fusion for Energy.

Mário Figueiredo is a Distinguished Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and holds the Feedzai Chair on Machine Learning. He is a group leader and area coordinator at Instituto de Telecomunicações. His interests include machine learning, signal processing, and optimization. He has received several honors and awards, namely: Fellow of the Institute of  Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), Fellow of the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP), and of Fellow of ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems); IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award, W. R. G. Baker Award (IEEE), Pierre Devijver Award (IAPR), EURASIP Technical Achievement Award. He is a member of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering and of the Lisbon Academy of Science.

Arlindo Oliveira obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) from IST and his PhD degree, also in EECS, from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright fellow. He was invited professor at MIT and a researcher at INESC, CERN, the Electronics Research Laboratory of UC Berkeley, the Berkeley Cadence Laboratories, and the University of Tokyo. He was a member of the National Council for Science Technology and Innovation and of the Advisory Board of the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) Panel of the European Parliament. He is a distinguished professor of IST, president of INESC, distinguished visiting professor at Macau University of Science and Technology, member of the board of Caixa Geral de Depósitos and a researcher at INESC-ID. He authored five books and hundreds of scientific articles in the areas of algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, bioinformatics and computer architecture. He has been on the boards of several companies and institutions and is a past president of IST, of INESC-ID and of the Portuguese Association for Artificial Intelligence. He is a member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering, and of ACM, a senior member of IEEE and a fellow of ELLIS. He received several prizes and distinctions, including the Technical University of Lisbon/Santander prize for excellence in research, the GALP/Academy of Engineering career prize and the ACEPI career prize.

Maria João Pereira é licenciada, mestre e doutorada em Engenharia de Minas pelo Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) da Universidade de Lisboa. É Professora Catedrática no IST, onde desempenhou as funções de Presidente do Centro de Recursos Naturais e Ambiente (CERENA) entre 2013 e 2021. Foi Coordenadora do Mestrado em Engenharia de Petróleos entre 2016 e 2020 e Coordenadora do Doutoramento em Georrecursos entre 2020 e 2021. Ao longo da sua carreira, liderou ou participou em mais de 30 projetos científicos, tendo publicado mais de 120 artigos em revistas científicas e atas de conferências. Exerceu o cargo de Secretária de Estado da Energia no XXIV Governo Constitucional.  Atualmente, é Presidente do Departamento de Engenharia de Recursos Minerais e Energéticos do IST.

Maria João Pereira holds a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD in Mining Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon. She is a Full Professor at IST, where she served as Head of the Centre for Natural Resources and the Environment (CERENA) from 2013 to 2021. She was Coordinator of the Master’s Program in Petroleum Engineering from 2016 to 2020 and of the PhD Program in Georesources from 2020 to 2021. Throughout her career, she has led or participated in more than 30 scientific projects and has published over 120 articles in scientific journals and conference proceedings. She served as Secretary of State for Energy in the XXIV Constitutional Government of Portugal. She is currently Head of the Department of Mineral and Energy Resources Engineering at IST.

Jorge de Brito is Full Professor in the Civil Engineering, Architecture and Environment Department of Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is presently the Coordinator of the PhD Programme on Civil Engineering at IST. He is co-coordinator of CIB W80 (Service Life Prediction) and the coordinator of CIB W80 (Building Pathology). He was the recipient of the UTL 2011, UL 2016 and UL 2021 Scientific Productivity awards. Over the last 20 years, he has been actively engaged in the edition, reviewing and writing of papers in international peer-reviewed journals. His research publications have earned him the highest ever bibliometric metrics in Civil Engineering in Portugal.

Rui Baptista is Full Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Engineering and Management Department of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). Previous academic posts include the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington. From 2012-15 Rui was Full Professor and Chair in International Entrepreneurship at Brunel Business School, Brunel University London.

Rui was Head of the Department of Engineering and Management of IST from 2015-2020 and President of the Centre for Management Studies (CEGIST) from 2010-2012, and a Research Professor (External) with the Max Planck Institute (2004-2010).

Rui holds a Ph.D. from London Business School, University of London. Rui’s research and teaching interests are in entrepreneurship and innovation, and their relationship with industry dynamics, labor markets, regional development. He is Editor of Small Business Economics – An Entrepreneurship Journal. He has published in, among others: Research Policy; Technological Forecasting and Social Change; Journal of Business Venturing; European Economic Review; Regional Studies; International Journal of Industrial Organization; International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal; Journal of Evolutionary Economics; and Annals of Regional Science.

Joana Mendonça is Associate Professor with Habilitation at Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon. She is currently vice-president at Instituto Superior Técnico, responsible for the Oeiras Campus.

She was President of the Board of the Nacional Innovation Agency in Portugal (ANI) between May 2021 and March 2023. Between 2010 and 2012, she was Deputy Director at the Directorate for Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC). She was scientific director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Partnership (2012-2021) and scientific coordinator at the Center of Engineering and Product Development, CEiiA, (2018-2021). During 2016, she was an assistant to the Minister for Economy for issues related to Innovation and Technology and in 2009-2010, she was an assistant to the Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education, both in the Government of Portugal.

She is a member of the Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, IN+, where she led the Laboratory of Technology Management and Policy. Her research focuses on management of technology and innovation, technology commercialization and adoption. She teaches Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management and Design Thinking to Masters and PhDs students.

Nuno Jardim Nunes is a Full Professor at Tecnico – University of Lisbon and the President and founder of the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI). Nuno is a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Nuno strongly advocates the role of design research in participatory culture and sustainability. His research influenced how digital technologies (including sensors, ML/AI, interactive storytelling, and mixed reality) can engage and inspire digital citizens to act sustainably and connect to nature and the broader ecosystems. Nuno coordinates one of the European lighthouse projects of the New European Bauhaus – the Bauhaus of the Seas. Nuno organised several conferences of the ACM SIGCHI and published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and conferences in HCI, software, energy, sustainability, design, and service science. He was PI and co-PI of several research projects totalling more than €25M from European to national and industry-funded.

José Manuel Marques hold a degree in Mining Engineering (1989) (IST) and a PhD in Mining Engineering (1999) (IST) with a thesis on the geochemistry of fluids and water-rock interaction. He achieved his Habilitation in Georesources in 2010, focusing on hydromineral and geothermal resources. His work spans teaching (as Associate Professor at IST – 2020) and research (at CERENA). He has been a Member of the Water-Rock Interaction Working Group (WRI-WG) of the International Association of Geochemistry (IAGC), a Member of the Commission on Mineral and Thermal Waters (CMTW), one of the Working Groups of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) (since 2017), and he was a member of the CERENA Executive Committee from 2020-2022. He has coordinated both undergraduate and master’s degrees in mining, energy resources and geological engineering, and, as of 2023, leading the Doctoral Program in Georesources / Energy and Earth Resources. His research activity has been focused on the development of an R&D line associated with the elaboration of robust conceptual hydrogeological models, with a special emphasis to the study of mineral and thermal waters, and to low-temperature geothermal fluids. He has published 97 documents with 67 Web of Science Core Collection peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals, and is co-author of 1 Book and 26 book chapters.