Friday, 10/21/2016
The new management team of the Department of Biological Engineering (DEB) of the EEUM took over on the 21st October.
António Augusto Martins
Oliveira Soares Vicente, Associate Professor from the Department of Biological Engineering
(DEB) of the EEUM, was recently elected director of the department for the
period 2016-2018. The management team also counts on Lígia Raquel Marona
Rodrigues, Assistant Professor from DEB, as assistant director.
The new director of DEB assumed a commitment towards all members of the department, particularly towards the students, as the department is essentially an education project. António Vicente greeted the outgoing director, Professor Armando Venâncio, trusting he will be continuing on the quality project of managing the department and also hoping to introduce some innovation. The main challenge will be attracting new students for DEB’s education programmes. The department expects to maintain the close cooperation with the Centre of Biological Engineering (CEB) as far as research activity is concerned.
António Augusto Martins Oliveira Soares Vicente graduated in Food Engineering in 1994 by the Portuguese Catholic University, in Porto, Portugal, and finished his PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering in 1998 by the University of Minho, in Braga, Portugal. He has received his Habilitation in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Minho in 2010. From an early stage of his career he has kept a close contact with the food industry and he is involved in several research projects, both national and international, together with industrial partners either as participant or as project leader. Currently he has collaborations established in countries like Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, UK and US. His main research interests are micro and nanotechnology applied to Food Technology (e.g. for encapsulation/immobilization of bioactive compounds), using different structures (nano-) multilayered films and coatings, (nano)emulsions, (nano)particles and (nano)gels, all from food-grade materials; in vitro digestion system for evaluation of the fate of foods in the GI tract; food processing by ohmic heating/moderate electric fields (namely the study of the effects of electric currents on biomolecules and cells); edible films and coatings for food products (chemical, physical and functional characterization); bioreactor technology (including design and operation of bioreactors for the growth of microalgae and cyanobacteria). He supervised/is currently supervising 25 PhD theses; he has also supervised/is currently supervising several MSc theses and 15 post-doctoral fellows. He has published ca. 200 research articles in international peer-reviewed journals and over 20 book chapters in international books. He is presently Associate Professor with Habilitation at DEB and researcher at CEB, EEUM.
The Department of Biological Engineering (DEB) is responsible for producing and disseminating knowledge in the scientific areas of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. The University of Minho launched the groundbreaking first Portuguese degree in Biological Engineering in October 1986.
