iMAN

Américo Azevedo - [PhD], he is head of CESE Centre for Enterprise Systems Engineering and Cientific Director of FABTEC Laboratory of Processes and Technologies for Production Advanced Systems

He is an Associate Professor with Aggregation in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto (FEUP). He has gained large experience in the academic, industrial and consultancy environments.

He teaches in the academic programmes of FEUP and PBS (Porto Business School) and in specific programmes such as EDAM (Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing) of the MIT-Portugal Program.

His research and teaching focuses on operations management, business processes management and enterprise collaborative networks. He has been active in supervising PhD and M.Sc research thesis on this research areas.

He has been author of many articles in international journals and technical publications and also active in preparing and participating in R&D projects involving industrial companies. He has been reviewer and evaluator of several international R&D Industrial projects and member of several scientific programmes committees.

Responsible for leading more than 45 company based national and international R&D and consulting projects in the domain of enterprise networks and industrial and operations management. He has been responsible in several consulting assignments with industrial companies, with special emphasis in operations and industrial management as well as in designing and developing new facilities, process optimization and development and implementation of decision support and planning tools for order management. Experience in several sectors/industries: machinery, semiconductors, ceramics, furniture, packaging, shoes and cork processing.

João Claro is Chairman and CEO of INESC TEC, and Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). He is also Director of the PhD in Engineering and Public Policy at FEUP, and President of the Academic Council and Head of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Porto Business School (PBS). His area of focus is Technology Management and Policy.

He currently serves as Scientific Director of the UT Austin Portugal Program. In recent years, he has worked closely with Carnegie Mellon University, namely as the National Director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, and with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, namely as a visiting scholar.

He was a member of the Board of the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO) between 2020 and 2023.

João Claro holds a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from FEUP (2008), an MSc in Quantitative Methods in Management from PBS (2002), and an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from FEUP (1993). Prior to returning to the University, he was a software engineer and information systems project manager at Edinfor (1994-1998).

António Paulo Gomes Mendes Moreira has a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering - FEUP (1986), Electronic Instrumentation option, a Master's degree in Electrotechnical and Computer Engineering - Systems Specialisation at FEUP (1991), a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering (1998) and an Aggregation - FEUP (2017). He is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. He is also a Researcher and Coordinator of CRIIS - Centre for Industrial Robotics and Intelligent Systems and Head of the iiLab – Industry and Innovation Laboratory at INESC TEC. He carries out research essentially in Robotics, Automation and Control, with an emphasis on its application in industrial projects and technology transfer. He has participated or is still participating in 25 scientific projects, being the coordinator or researcher responsible for 7 of them. The work carried out on these projects has generated 40 projects with companies or development and technology transfer contracts, and he is the lead researcher on 18 of these projects. He also participated in the development of 18 prototypes and 2 patents, of which he is co-owner. He has contributed to the creation of two spin-off companies. More details at: https://www.cienciavitae.pt/portal/EB15-85A7-4A0D

I am Full Professor at Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto (FEP) and board member of LIAAD, Laboratório de Inteligência Artificial e de Apoio à Decisão of UP. LIAAD is a unit of INESC TEC since 2007. I am Ph.D. in Management Science, Imperial College of London - Business School(2000), MSc. In Operational Research, The London School of Economics and Political Sciences (1994), and I have a first degree (5-years) in Electrical Engineering and Computer, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (1993). Teaching Assistant at The London School of Economics and Political Sciences (1996-99). Visiting Professor at University of Florida (2007/08) and at Texas A& M University (2015-16).

My research interests include developing and applying Operational Research and Artificial Intelligence techniques for decision support in Management problems (including production, storage, logistics and transportation, and services), with particular interest on combinatorial optimization applications. I have authored over 60 publications (WoS) and I have been coordinating and participating in several research projects. I am Associate Editor of Journal of Combinatorial Optimization and Operations Research Forum (both Springer).

At FEP I have been lecturing, mainly in English, Operational Research and Operations Management to undergraduates, Research and Operations Management , Logistics, Decision Analysis, and Optimization to Master students and Ph.D. candidates. 

At FEP have also been involved in several boards and councils (Representative Council, Scientific Board, Pedagogical Board, Scientific Committee of the Ph.D. in Management and of the Master in Modeling, Data Analysis and Decision Support Systems, among others).

I was FEP Vice-Dean and currently I am the Diretor of ISFEP – Institute of Resarch and Services of FEP.