Since 2024, the Faculty of Sciences has hosted the Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS), which annually invites internationally renowned scientists for an intensive three-day visit. During this period, the guests have the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience through two lectures in their field of expertise, as well as through direct interactions with the academic community in Portugal, including faculty members, researchers, and PhD students from the Faculty.
Each cycle begins with a lecture aimed at a broader audience, offering a unique opportunity to gain a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of a specific scientific area, presented by one of its most prominent specialists. The following sessions focus on more advanced and technical topics, specifically designed for doctoral students and centered on recent and particularly relevant developments within the respective discipline.
15 July 2025 | Meredith R. Morris "HCI for AGI: Human-Computer Interaction for Artificial General Intelligence"
Meredith R. Morris is Director of Research on Human-AI Interaction at Google DeepMind. Prior to joining DeepMind, she led the People + AI Research team within Google's Responsible AI division. She previously served as Research Area Manager for Interaction, Accessibility, and Mixed Reality at Microsoft Research.
In addition to her industry roles, Morris holds an academic appointment at the University of Washington, where she is an Affiliate Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and the Information School. She has been recognized as an ACM Fellow and is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy, in recognition of her contributions to Human-Computer Interaction research.
29 April 2025 | Lars Montelius "Science in Our Time:For People, Planet and Prosperity"
Lars Montelius was Director-General of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory from 2014 to 2022. He is Emeritus Professor at Lund University, Sweden, and has dedicated more than 30 years of work to the development of nanotechnology and advanced materials.
He is the founder and investor in several Swedish nanotechnology companies, co-chair of the Steering Group of the Advanced Materials Initiative (AMI 2030), and a board member of the Malta Initiative and the European Technology Platform EuMat.
He served as President of IUVSTA, Director of the Øresund University and Øresund Science Region – a cross-border cooperation between eleven universities and three regional authorities in two countries – and chaired the Swedish Technical Standards Committee on Nanotechnology.
He is also a member of the External Advisory Board of the Faculty of Sciences.
22 October 2024 | Salvatore Capozziello "Time: From time perception to the Time Machine"
Salvatore Capozziello is Full Professor of General Relativity and Cosmology at the University of Naples "Federico II" (Italy) and coordinator of the PhD programme in Cosmology and Space Science at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale (Naples). He served as President of the Italian Society of General Relativity and Gravitation (SIGRAV) from 2012 to 2018, and taught General Relativity at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (L’Aquila) between 2012 and 2020.
He has been Honorary Professor at Tomsk State Pedagogical University (Russia) since 2013, a foreign member of the Serbian Academy of Nonlinear Sciences since 2023, and, as of 2024, Corresponding Member of the Italian National Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts (SNSLA).
His research focuses on General Relativity, Cosmology, and Relativistic Astrophysics, particularly on the proposal that dark matter and dark energy could be explained as curvature effects resulting from extensions of General Relativity. He has authored around 680 scientific papers with over 50,000 citations, as well as several monographs, and has supervised more than 50 PhD theses and 70 Master's theses in Physics and Mathematics.
23 April 2024 | Virgínia Dignum "Beyond the AI hype: Balancing Innovation and Social Responsibility"
Virgínia Dignum is Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University (Sweden), where she leads the AI Policy Lab. She is also Senior Policy Advisor on AI to the Wallenberg Foundations. She holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Utrecht University (2004), is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and a Fellow of the European Association for AI (EURAI).
She is a member of the UN Advisory Body on AI, the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), the OECD AI Expert Group, co-founder of ALLAI (the Dutch AI Alliance), and co-chair of the Global Future Council on AI of the World Economic Forum (WEF). She was also a member of the EU High-Level Expert Group on AI and led the UNICEF guidance on AI and children. Her upcoming book, “The AI Paradox”, is scheduled for release in late 2024.