Health

João Tiago Gaspar started working at Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos in 2016, having held different positions in the Scientific Department until becoming head of Research and Science Communication (in 2022). As of 2024, he became responsible for the Foundation's Content and International Affairs, maintaining the position of director of the Foundation's Summaries collection (created in 2018). He was a teaching assistant of History of International Relations at NOVA FCSH, in the 2020/2021 academic year, having accumulated this position with his functions at FFMS. Between 2015 and 2016, before joining the Foundation, he was a research assistant at the ICS of the University of Lisbon, as part of the 2015 Portuguese Electoral Study. He graduated in Political Science and obtained a master’s degree in Governance, Leadership and Democracy Studies at the Portuguese Catholic University, where he is working on his PhD in Political Science and International Relations. He was also an exchange student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a visiting student at Lincoln College, University of Oxford.

Last updated: May 2024

He holds a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute (Florence) and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Minho School of Economics and Management, a member of the Research Centre for Economic and Business Policies (NIPE) and an external collaborator of the Higher Education Policy Research Centre (CIPES). His main areas of research are labour economics and the evaluation of programmes and public policies. He has published articles in international journals and several books and chapters on these subjects. As a consultant, he has produced several reports aimed at analysing the economic impacts associated with climate change, large-scale projects or events and labour policies on minimum wages, education and employment, both for private and public institutions, such as the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, the Ministry of Economy and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Last updated: October 2021

Gonçalo Saraiva Matias is the Minister Adjunct and for State Reform of the XXV Constitutional Government. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors and of the Executive Committee of the Foundation between september 2022 and june 2025.
He was a professor at the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Portugal, where he also obtained his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees.
He was director of the Catholic Global School of Law and visiting professor at Washington University. He conducted research at the Georgetown University Law School as a Fulbright visiting scholar. Most of his work falls within Regulatory, Administrative, Constitutional and International Law. He was the director of the Migration Observatory, Secretary of State for the Administrative Modernisation of the XX Constitutional Government. He has been advisor for legal affairs to the President of the Portuguese Republic since 2008. In 2016, he was awarded the title of Grand Officer of the Order of Infante D. Henrique. He was born in Lisbon, in 1979.

Last uptade: june 2025

She is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Brigham Young University in the USA and an adjunct professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. Her research focuses on social connections and their long-term effects on health, biological mechanisms and working on effective strategies to promote social connections. Her research has been instrumental in demonstrating that social isolation and loneliness are risk factors for early mortality.
She is the Director of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the US Coalition to End Social Isolation and Loneliness and a scientific advisor to multisectoral organisations on this issue.

Last updated: December 2021

She is a journalist for the prestigious Science magazine, and for 17 years was a member of the editorial team of Nature magazine.
She was a member of the think tank «New America» and has collaborated with the main US newspapers and magazines.
She has a degree in human biology from Standford University and a degree in medicine from Oxford University. She has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
She has published several non-fiction works, including «The Vaccine Race», a Book Prize nominee, and the Washinton Post’s Notable Nonfiction Book of 2017. It was also named as one of the best science books of 2017 by The Guardian.

For more than 30 years, he has been giving consultations to children, adolescents and parents, closely following the changes in Portuguese families. He directed the Paediatrics Service at the Lisbon North Hospital Centre between 1972 and 1980 and helped to set up the first Child Development Unit in the country, at Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon.
He was a professor of Paediatrics and Public Health at the Nova School of Medical Sciences in Lisbon, and a guest lecturer in the United Kingdom and Spain. He chaired the Social and Community Paediatrics section of the Portuguese Society of Paediatrics and the European Society for Social Paediatrics.
He founded and chaired the Association for the Promotion of Child Safety (APSI). He was a member of the National Committees on Women's and Children's Health, Children's Rights and Good Practices in Homes and ran the National Health Observatory.
In addition to being a member of the Academy of Arts and Literature, he has written dozens of books, such as «Children and Families in a Changing Portugal» and «Hurried Parents, Stressed Children», and bestsellers like «The Great Book on Babies».

She is Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine, where she has worked as Lead Researcher since 2005, the same year she started teaching at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lisbon.
Although her research addresses various fields, her primary focus is malaria and the mechanisms that cause the infection to develop into a deadly disease.
With a PhD in Molecular Parasitology from University College London in the UK and a Master's in Immunology from the University of Porto, she has worked in scientific research centres such as the Gulbenkian Institute of Sciences and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the USA.
With over 100 publications and four patents, she has received dozens of national and international awards – including the Pessoa Prize (2013) and the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Prize (2018).

Last updated: May 2023

She is a full professor in the Department of Social Psychology and the Psychology of Organisations at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, where she has taught since 2004. She does her research work at the Research and Social Intervention Centre at the same university.
She has coordinated several research projects throughout her career, having specialised in the application of Social Psychology to health and environmental issues. One of the topics that she looked into more closely is the question of risk perception, from the social factors that affect it to its consequences for public participation in decision-making processes.
Between 2006 and 2010, she chaired the Portuguese Association of Psychology. She was a member of the Scientific Council of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Foundation for Science and Technology.
She has written several books, such as «Social Psychology of Health, Volumes 1 and 2» (Edições Sílabo) and the essay «Ourselves and Others: The Power of Social Ties», published by Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos.

He holds a PhD, a Master's Degree and Bachelor's Degree in Sociology from the University of Coimbra. Between 1998 and 2015, he was Lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto.
Since 2015, he has been Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra. He is also Permanent Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, where he has dedicated himself to researching international migration.
He also collaborates with various national and international agencies and institutions, such as the International Organisation for Migration, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the European Migration Network.
He has published over 100 articles and books on emigration and immigration in Portugal and Europe. In his most recent work, «Common Home» (2019), Pedro Góis notes that «migration flows to Portugal produce positive effects, mitigating, in the short term, the consequences of population ageing and decline» yet requiring long-term demographic planning, which has yet to be done.

Last update: February 2020

Founder and CEO of the communications company Empower Sports and presenter on the Eleven Sports channel. He began his career at RTP, later working for CNN (in the US and later as a correspondent in London), Sport TV and UEFA. He has also worked with FIFA and the Portuguese Football Federation.

Last updated: January 2022