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On Tuesday, July 7, 2007, the MIT Portugal Program will hold a high-profile conference at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon for members of Portugal's scientific and entrepreneurial communities—leaders from research centers and universities as well as CEOs and R&D executives from companies, innovation and engineering centers.
Engineering for Better Jobs, which is supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Technologia (FCT), will feature lectures, discussions and poster sessions on the areas of research that MIT Portugal will emphasize going forward: sustainable energy and transportation systems, stem cell engineering for regenerative medicine, and materials and design-inspired products. It also will convey key aspects of the systems-thinking approaches that have undergirded MIT-Portugal research to date and will continue to do so in the future.
A number of MIT Portugal’s industry affiliates will participate in the panel discussions at the day-long conference, and will help to demonstrate some of the benefits to industry in Portugal and elsewhere from partnering with MIT Portugal on research that addresses pressing challenges having to do with energy, transportation, bio-engineering, sustainability, and economic development.
New Directions for Research
Engineering for Better Jobs will feature special introductory remarks from José Mariano Gago, Portugal’s Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, and Manuel Heitor, Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education. In addition to senior executives from some of the program's industry affiliates, the presentations and discussions that follow will feature distinguished representatives from MIT, and MIT Portugal students and faculty.
The four main discussions will address the following:
- Sustainable energy and transportation systems: the “Green Islands” project
- Uncertainty and dynamics in engineering problems: Portuguese cases
- Stem cell engineering for regenerative medicine: novel therapies
- Materials and design-inspired products: products for the (new) mobility industry
In addition to these discussions, Engineering for Better Jobs will feature a lunch with deans of several Portuguese schools of engineering: António M. Cunha, Electrical Engineering, University of Minho; Carlos Costa, FEUP; Fernando Santana, FCT-UNL; João Gabriel Silva, FCT-UCoimbra; and Nuno Guimarães, FC-ULisboa. The event also will include poster presentations by MIT Portugal students and Principal Investigators who are studying and conducting research in Portugal, and a poster awards ceremony.
The keynote address will be delivered by Steven D. Eppinger, General Motors LFM Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Professor Eppinger’s research on the management of complex engineering systems currently focuses on how product development processes are distributed globally, and how projects can be structured efficiently.
Professors Dan Roos and Paulo Ferrão, MIT Portugal’s co-directors, also will speak at the conference.
For additional information, contact:
Mario Meira
University of Minho School of Engineering
+351 253 510 174
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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