Space systems and us: what is new in space? 16/12/2022

On 16 December, Manuel Heitor will hold a seminar on Space systems and us: what is new in space? The seminar will take place at 6 PM at Room VA3 (Civil Engineering building).

Manuel Heitor is Full Professor at Instituto Superior Te´cnico, IST, the engineering school of the Technical University of Lisbon, www.ist.utl.pt, and was the founding director of IN+, the Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research at IST, http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/. From November 2015 to March 2022 he served as Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education in the Government of Portugal and from March 2005 to June 2011 he served as Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education. Overall, he served more than 12,5 years in the Government of Portugal. In 2011-12 academic year he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and in the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School. In 2022 he received the Honorary Doctor in Science and Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. 
After earning a (five-year) degree in Mechanical Engineering at IST in 1981, he obtained his Doctorate at the Imperial College London in 1985 in the area of fluid mechanics and combustion. In 1986 he conducted post-doctoral studies at the University of California-San Diego in microgravity flame propagation. Manuel Heitor was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IST in 1986, Associate Professor in 1991 and Full Professor in 1995. He served as Deputy- President of Instituto Superior Te´cnico from 1993 to 1998. 
In addition to his engineering research, Manuel Heitor has worked and published extensively in the interrelated fields of technology management, innovation, and science and higher education policy. 
While in the Government of Portugal, Manuel Heitor was successfully involved in attracting public and private investment in R&D, growing the research landscape of the country, and in the reform and modernization of higher education (including, but not limited to, reforms under the Bologna Process). He launched the program “Go-Portugal – Global Science and Technology Partnerships Portugal” and was instrumental in forming international consortia for research and advanced education with several U.S. universities (MIT, Carnegie Mellon, UT Austin), including consortia are of varying types and scale, industry relationships and technology commercialization activities.