Since 2024, the Faculty of Sciences has hosted the Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS), which annually invites internationally renowned scientists for an intensive three-day stay.
Distinguished Lecture Series
During this period, guests have the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience through two lectures in their area of expertise, as well as through direct interactions with the academic community in Portugal, lecturers, researchers and PhD students from the Faculty.
Each cycle begins with a lecture aimed at a wider audience, offering a unique opportunity to gain a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of a specific scientific area, presented by one of its leading experts. The following sessions are dedicated to more advanced and technical topics, aimed especially at PhD students, focusing on recent and particularly relevant developments in the respective disciplinary field.
15.07.2025 | Meredith R. Morris "HCI for AGI: Human-Computer Interaction for Artificial General Intelligence"
Meredith R. Morris is Director of Human-AI Interaction Research at Google DeepMind. Before joining DeepMind, she was Director of the People + AI Research team in Google Research's Responsible AI division. Previously, she also served as Research Area Manager for Interaction, Accessibility, and Mixed Reality at Microsoft Research.
In addition to her role in industry, Morris holds an academic appointment at the University of Washington, where she is an Affiliated Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and also in the Information School. Morris has been recognised as a Fellow of ACM and as a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy in recognition of her contributions to Human-Computer Interaction research.
29.04.2025 | Lars Montelius "Science in Our Time:For People, Planet and Prosperity"
Lars Montelius was Director-General of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory between 2014 and 2022. He is Professor Emeritus at Lund University in Sweden, and his more than 30 years of work in nanotechnology have focused on the development of nanotechnology and advanced materials.
He is the founder and financier of several Swedish nanotechnology companies, co-chair of the Steering Group of the Advanced Materials Initiative (AMI 2030) and a member of the board of directors of the Malta Initiative and the European Technology Platform EuMat.
He has been President of IUVSTA, Director of Øresund University and the Øresund Science Region, a cross-border cooperation between eleven universities and three regional authorities from two countries in the Øresund Region, and Chairman of the Swedish Technical Standardisation Committee for Nanotechnology.
He is a member of the External Advisory Board of CIÊNCIAS.
22.10.2024 | Salvatore Capozziello "Time: From time perception to the Time Machine"
Salvatore Capozziello is 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 was president of the Italian Society for General Relativity and Gravitation (SIGRAV) between 2012 and 2018, having taught General Relativity at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (L'Aquila) between 2012 and 2020. He has been an Honorary Professor at the Tomsk State Pedagogical University (Russia) since 2013, a foreign member of the Serbian Academy of Nonlinear Sciences since 2023 and, since 2024, a corresponding member of the Italian National Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts (SNSLA). His research focuses on General Relativity, Cosmology and Relativistic Astrophysics, with an emphasis on the proposal that dark matter and dark energy can be explained as effects of curvature by extending General Relativity. He has published around 680 scientific articles and has over 50,000 citations, in addition to several monographs, and has supervised more than 50 PhDs and 70 master's degrees in Physics and Mathematics.
23.04.2024 | Virgínia Dignum "Beyond the AI hype: Balancing Innovation and Social Responsibility"
Virginia Dignum is Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University (Sweden), where she heads the AI Policy Lab. She is also a senior advisor on AI policy 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 member of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EURAI).
Virginia Dignum is a member of the United Nations Advisory Body on AI, the Global Partnership on AI, the OECD's AI expert group, founder of ALLAI, the Dutch AI Alliance, and co-chair of the WEF's Global Future Council on AI. She was also a member of the EU High-Level Expert Group on AI and leader of UNICEF's guidance on AI and children. Her new book, ‘The AI Paradox’, is scheduled for publication in late 2024.