The seven Portuguese faculty judged as winners of the 2009 MIT-Portugal Education Innovation Awards were honored at a ceremony at the Luso-American Foundation in Lisbon on 4 May 2010.  Mário Mesquita presents awards to Jorge Pinho de Sousa (FEUP) and António Pais Antunes (FCT-UC) These awards are an important element of the Program’s efforts to recognize and reward excellence in the design and delivery of educational programs in Portugal. The Program leadership, through the awards, seeks to give greater incentive to outstanding teaching as part of its desire to ensure the quality of its degree programs. At the award ceremony, Prof. António M. Cunha, the Rector of the University of Minho, offered his impressions of the educational achievements of the MIT-Portugal Program, what he thought would be its enduring contributions to the Portuguese higher education system, and how a second phase of MIT-Portugal might come to pass. Prof. Cunha said that the MIT-Portugal educational programs had demonstrated that it is possible in Portugal to conduct such high-level training at an internationally rigorous scientific level while also meeting the real-life challenges of industry, and said he hoped that this higher expectation for graduate education would be preserved in a second MIT-Portugal phase and in Portugal’s universities as a whole. Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer, an MIT researcher who has surveyed Portuguese faculty and students both inside and outside the MIT-Portugal Program, presented the findings of his study. He highlighted the Program’s ability to create very productive collaborations among Portuguese institutions, and the imperative upon these institutions to retain the outstanding younger faculty who had gained the most from their experience in the Program. Dr. Pfotenhauer's presentation is available here:  Sebastian Pfotenhauer Presentation at 2009 MPP Education Innovation Awards (759.96 kB). The generous sponsorship of FLAD supports the awards and the cash prizes offered to the winning faculty. The 2009 winners are as follows: Bioengineering Systems:
Cláudia Lobato da Silva, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon
Isabel Rocha, University of Minho Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing: Arlindo Silva, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon
Sustainable Energy Systems
Vítor Leal, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto
Transportation Systems
António Pais Antunes, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra
Jorge Pinho de Sousa, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto
Click here to see a list of the Award Citations for the winning faculty members: 2009 Education Innovation Award Winners' Citations (34.27 kB) The awards are given based on a review of nominations by a jury made up of Portuguese and MIT faculty leaders from each of the four educational programs, a representative of the President of FCT, the National and MIT Directors of MIT-Portugal and the Director of Education at MIT. | 
