Profiles

We recently spoke with Jean Pol Piquard about his business, teaching and consulting careers—how they led him to become EDAM Industry Professor at FEUP (Porto), and why developing “projects that fit the agenda of potential industry affiliates” is key to the EDAM mission.

EDAM Industry Professor Jean Pol Picard

MPP: What is your background?
I am Belgian, and received my degrees in civil engineering and management in Belgium. For many years my career was in management, sales, marketing and global projects for European industrial companies. I have been based in Portugal since 1988, where I first assumed management roles in Portuguese companies. Since 1995 I have taught and have consulted on issues involving the internationalization of companies and clusters, as well as on international marketing.

MPP: How did you connect with the MIT Portugal Program?
In 2008 Prof. António Torres Marques [Coordinator of the EDAM program at Porto] contacted me to discuss project development and internationalization challenges for the EDAM [Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing] program. I saw this as an interesting opportunity, one that would complement my teaching and consulting. I applied to become an EDAM Industry Professor. I and Prof. Eduardo Beira (at the University of Minho) now hold those positions.

PhD student Travis Dunn

PhD student Travis Dunn recently answered questions about his graduate studies in Transportation, his involvement in MIT Portugal—even his philosophy about toll collecting.

MPP: What is your hometown?

TD: San Antonio, Texas, USA.

MPP: What degree are you pursuing?

TD: An interdepartmental PhD in Transportation at MIT.

MPP: Where did you do your previous studies?

TD: I have undergraduate degrees in civil engineering and in a humanities program called Plan 2, both from the University of Texas at Austin. I’m also a graduate of the MS in Transportation program at MIT.

MPP: Have you had any work experience?

TD: Before returning to MIT for the PhD program, I worked for two years in the transportation practice of the consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton, in the Washington, D.C., area.

Prof. Patricia Almeida Carvalho

Patricia Almeida Carvalho, a tenured professor of materials science at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, is visiting MIT during the 2008–2009 academic year as a Fulbright scholar. A microscopist with a first degree in metallurgical and materials engineering and a PhD in mathematics and natural sciences, Carvalho is spending her sabbatical year in the laboratory of MIT’s Dean of Engineering, Subra Suresh, a member of MIT Portugal’s Governing Committee. Her visit is the result of a referral from her PhD advisor at Groningen University and Prof. Joaquim Sampaio Cabral at IST, one of MIT Portugal’s bio-engineering focus area leads.

MPP: What are you working on in the Suresh Lab?

PC: Our work involves cell and molecular mechanics in red blood cells that have been affected by malaria. Basically, I use atomic force micrsocopy (AFM) to study how affected cells are deformed, by measuring nanoscale forces using a cantilever device. Red blood cells that aren’t infected pass through the spleen, but infected cells become rigid and can’t do that.  They adhere to capillaries and burst, causing more infection. We’re trying to better understand—and measure—the deformation process.

PhD Bio-Engineering student David Malta

Second-year PhD Bio-Engineering student David Malta recently talked about how he came to be a graduate student in the MIT Portugal Program and what kind of research he is involved in during the current academic year, while at MIT. In the summer of 2008, Malta was one of four MIT Portugal PhD students in the Bio-Engineering Program to win the Biocant Ventures Prize. Their “Bio-Team” not only worked on a metabolic test for protein breakdown, but created a go-to-market strategy for the technology.

MPP: Where did you grow up and where did you do your undergraduate studies?

DM:  I grew up in a suburb of Lisbon and went to IST (Instituto Superior Tecnico) in Lisbon as an undergraduate. It was the logical choice for me, once I decided I wanted to study engineering.

MPP:  How did you learn about MIT Portugal?

DM: It was through Professor Joaquim Cabral, who teaches chemical and biological engineering at IST. I was at Imperial College in London working on my master’s, and Professor Cabral told the final-year students about the launching of MIT Portugal.