Science

An astrobiologist and international expert on the origin and evolution of life in the universe, she is Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), where she created Portugal’s first astrobiology and chemistry of the cosmos research department. She is also Co-Director of the MIT-Portugal programme, a partnership between IST and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With a PhD from the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands, she has dedicated herself to studying the potential contribution of organic compounds present in meteorites and comets to the origin of life on Earth and searching for signs of life on Mars, the moons of the Solar System and extrasolar planets. She has participated in several space missions as a NASA Guest Scientist (2005/6), taught at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis in France and was Researcher at Imperial College in London between 2009 and 2017. She currently collaborates on various European Space Agency missions and is part of the national science team for the Japanese Hayabusa2 space mission. A member of the Committee of the Astrobiology Society of Great Britain and national representative of the Executive Committee of the European Astrobiology Association, she was appointed an Officer of the Military Order of Sant'Iago de Espada (2015).

Last updated: November 2019

Holder of the Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics at the City University of New York, he has taught at CUNY School, Harvard and Princeton for several decades. He has specialised in Einstein's unified field theory (which he has been trying to complete) and in predicting trends in business, medicine, financial dynamics and our way of life in general. Co-author of string theory, Kaku's greatest ambition is to make Einstein's dream come true: to find a «theory of everything» that encapsulates all the physical laws of the universe. His many books include «The Future of Humanity», «Cyberspace», «The Future of the Mind», «The Physics of the Future» and «The Physics of the Impossible», all of which have been huge commercial successes . He regularly participates in television programmes and moderates science programmes on television and radio. The public face of the Science Channel, Michio Kaku also presented the BBC’s Visions of the Future, a documentary about the future of science, and a 12-part science series based on his best-selling book «The Physics of the Impossible», as well as regularly appearing on Fox News programmes. His articles have appeared in Time, New Scientist Magazine, Wired Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Washington Post.

A journalist, he was Director of News at RTP and TVI, simultaneously editing and presenting Telejornal (RTP) and Jornal das 8 (TVI). He began his career in radio and, in 1992, was part of the team that founded the first private television station in Portugal, SIC, where he presented Jornal da Noite. He taught at the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social and co-coordinated the Postgraduate Course in Journalism at ISCTE/Media Capital. At the invitation of the President of the Republic, he inaugurated the programme «Journalists in Belém Palace» in 2018.

A developmental and evolutionary biologist, he is a scientist, teacher, author of books on science and science communication and film producer. He directs the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science Education Department and the HHMI Tangled Bank Studio. He is Professor of Biology at the University of Maryland and Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin. He was awarded the Rockefeller University's Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science in 2016.

Last updated: April 2021

He graduated from, obtained his doctorate and taught at the Instituto Superior Técnico (1971-97). In 1998, he became Full Professor at the Institute of Chemical and Biological Technology (ITQB-Nova) where, now retired, he still runs a laboratory. He was a NATO fellow at Oxford University (UK) and an A. v. Humboldt Foundation fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Coal Research and the Technical University of Munich, both in Germany. His research focuses on the application of organometallic chemistry and inorganic chemistry to catalysis and medicine. Co-founder of a start-up dedicated to discovering carbon, monoxide-based drugs for treating inflammatory diseases. Co-author of around 220 scientific articles and patents.

Last updated: November 2018

He was Professor of Physical Chemistry at Oxford University from 1965 until his retirement in 2007. His research focused on theoretical chemistry and magnetic resonance, but his interest eventually turned to writing. He published over 70 books, including university textbooks and science books for the general public. His best-known book for general readers is Atkins’ «Physical Chemistry», which is now in its eleventh edition and used all over the world. Atkins continues to give lectures and is an active proponent of various humanist and secular associations. In 2016, he received an award from the American Chemical Society for communicating chemistry to the public.

Last updated: November 2018

Co-author of the book «The Science of Youth» (Elsinore, 2017). A psychologist who studies ageing and obesity, she directs the Center for Aging, Metabolism and Emotions at the University of California, San Francisco.

Last updated: November 2020

Science journalist for radio, television and the press. Trained at Columbia University in New York, NOVA and the Haute École ICHEC in Brussels, he was also Communications Coordinator at ISCTE-IUL. He has received awards from the Association for the Promotion and Development of the Information Society and the online magazine «Ciência Hoje».

Last updated: November 2020

An Emmy-winning writer, producer and director, she specialises in science communication. She co-created the television series «Cosmos», presented by Carl Sagan, wrote and produced the sequels «Cosmos: A Journey Through Space-Time» (2014) and «Cosmos: Possible Worlds» (2020), as well as publishing a book of the same name (Gradiva, 2020). She was creative director of NASA's Voyager Interstellar Message Project, the gold disks carried by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft.

Last updated: October 2020

With a PhD in Biochemistry from University College London (UCL), Camilla Pang is a postdoctoral scientist specialising in translational bioinformatics at a pharmaceutical company developing treatments for diseases with immunological and neurological causes. She is the author of «Explaining Humans» (Penguin Viking, March 2020), a memoir that draws on scientific principles to understand human behaviour, from the perspective of a person suffering from autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The book was a finalist for the Royal Society Insight Investment Best Scientific Book Award 2020.

Last updated: October 2021