Team

Carlos Marques is the coordinator of DigiAqua project and he is Principal Researcher of Physic Department at the University of Aveiro. He received the Ph.D. degree in Physics Engineering from the UA, Portugal, in 2013. He was a Marie Curie (MC) Fellow in the Aston Institute of Photonics Technologies, Aston University, U.K until March 2016. His main interests include optical devices for sensing, integrated optics, low cost interrogation systems, machine learning, data acquisition and optical transmission data.

Ana Cristina Pereira is the co-coordinator of DigiAqua project. She is a researcher at University of Madeira. She graduated in Chemical Engineering (2006), concluded her PhD project in Chemical Process Engineering in 2012. Her scientific activity is centred in chemometrics and applied statistics. The domain of specialization is in multivariate statistical techniques, namely exploratory data analysis, pre-processing techniques, multivariate regression, classification methodologies. Her experience also extends to analytical chemistry, namely to chromatography and spectroscopy techniques and sample preparation, including the most recent extraction techniques. Food science is the main field of application. She published about 30 papers in international peer review journals, 3 book chapters and more than 40 communications in national and international conferences. She presents an h-index of 12 at Scopus. The h10-index of google scholar is 18, presenting more than 500 citations. She is a member of Chemical Process Engineering and Forest Products Research Centre (CIEPQPF), namely integrated in Process Systems Engineering group (GEPSI). Ana Cristina has worked in I&D department of Cork Supply Portugal for three years, collaborating in different research projects and quality control activities. From 2016, is a member of the board of ‘Ordem dos Engenheiros’ (Portuguese authority in accreditation of professional engineers) in regional Chemical Engineering College. From 2022, she the coordinator of the Chemistry and Biology Engineering College of the Ordem dos Engenheiros in Madeira.   https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3097-7704 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=siKOsygAAAAJ&hl=en  

Florinda Mendes da Costa is an Associate Professor with Habilitation of Physic Department at the University of Aveiro. She finished the PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Aveiro in 1996. Her main research interest is the processing materials using laser technology, namely laser floating zone (LFZ), laser assisted flow deposition, laser ablation in liquids and laser surface treatments techniques. These techniques have been applied to the growth and treatment of a wide set of materials envisaging energy, biomedical and optoelectronic applications.

Petia Georgieva is Associate Professor with Habilitation of Machine Learning in the Department of Electronics Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI) at University of Aveiro, Portugal, senior researcher in the Institute of Electronics Engineering and Telematics of Aveiro (IEETA) and collaborator in the Applied Mathematics group of IT. Her research interests include machine learning, deep learning and data mining with strong application focus on sensor data processing and time series forecasting.

Pedro L. de Almeida is an Assistant Professor with habilitation at the Physics Department of ISEL/IPL, Portugal. He is a full member of the Soft and Biofunctional Materials Group of the Research Centre in Materials Science (CENIMAT/I3N) of FCT/NOVA. He has a PhD and habilitation both in Materials Science and Engineering from NOVA School of Science and Technology, Portugal. His main research lines are Polymeric and Mesomorphic materials in particular Cellulose derivatives and their application. Complex fluids. Solid State NMR, including MAS, Diffusion, MRI and Rheo-NMR. Liquid crystals, and liquid crystal applications.

Margarida Facão is Assistant professor of Physic Department at the University of Aveiro. Her main research interest is modelling in nonlinear optics, optical communications, quantum cryptography.

She received the Ph.D. degree in 2017. She is currently Researcher with the Nanophotonics and Optoeletronics Group of i3N, Department of Physics, University of Aveiro, in collaboration with the Instituto de Telecomunicações. Her current research interests include the study and development of photonic and optoelectronic solutions for biomedical sensing, especially based on optical fiber sensors.

Rita Sobral is Assistant professor in UNL, Lisbon. She is Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology of Bacterial Pathogens at UCIBIO@REQUIMTE. Research carried on in the Lab MolMicro of Bacterial Pathogens focusses on the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus, in particular the role of the bacterial cell wall and the physiology of the peptidoglycan polymer.

PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Coimbra (2006), where he is an Associate Professor with habilitation at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the School of Sciences and Technology. Former President of the European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics (ENBIS). He lectures courses on process systems engineering, industrial statistics, advanced process modelling and simulation, quality technology and management, among other topics. His research interests are centred on industrial data science, sensor fusion, feature engineering, hybrid modelling, fault detection/diagnosis/prognosis, predictive analytics, structured process improvement, AutoML, design of experiments, and chemometrics. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4997-8865.

Susana P. Gaudêncio is the Head of the Blue Biotechnology and Biomedicine Lab (https://ucibio.pt/research-groups/lab/blue-biotechnology-biomedicine), at UCIBIO, FCT-NOVA. She graduated in Chemistry in 1998 at FCUL and she completed her PhD in Organic Chemistry at FCT-NOVA in 2006. She has great experience in marine natural product research and scientific work accomplished with several international and interdisciplinary groups (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5510-1170).Her research focuses on the discovery of natural products from marine-derived actinomycetes (Actinobacteria) as lead-like agents for drug discovery and other biotechnological applications, such as antifouling and antibiofilm uses. At FCTNOVA, she built a marine-derived actinomycete collection of over 1600 strains from the Azores and Madeira Archipelagos, the Canary Islands and Portugal mainland coast. More recently she started to use these actinomycetes strains for plastic degradation and bioplastic production.

Graduated in Chemical Engineering by the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and with a PhD in Physical Chemistry (Mass Spectrometry) by the Ecole Politechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), worked for about 11 years in the pharmaceutical industry (HOVIONE) as QC/QA Director. During that period, an intense collaboration with international pharmacopoeias (namely Japanese, European and United States) was developed, involving the submission of specific analytical procedures for the analysis and assay of tetracyclines and corticosteroids. At the Madeira University since 1995, was head of the Chemistry Department (1996 - 2000) and coordinator of the Madeira Chemistry Research Centre (2002-2006). Main scientific teaching areas are separations techniques, instrumental methods of analysis and quality control (Faculty of Exact Sciences and Engineering - University of Madeira). Scientific research interests are directed to the application of Analytical Chemistry to natural products (namely the optimization of the aging process and characterization of Madeira wines) and food science (Isoplexis – Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Technology - University of Madeira). He supervised 8 PhD projects at the University of Madeira (4 completed). He was involved in the RD and Innovation regional plan for 2014 -2020 (heading the food area) and main research projects involve regional food companies. Up to March 2022 (6 years), he was the coordinator of the Chemistry and Biology Engineering College of the Ordem dos Engenheiros in Madeira. He is a member of the FCT National Research Unit I3N (Institute of Nanostructures, Nanomodelling and Nanofabrication).  

Currently I’m enrolled in the Doctoral Programme in Physics Engineering at the University of Aveiro, in which I started working in the field of optical sensors for application in the Aquaculture sector, namely for the detection of cortisol (stress hormone), bacteria and sub-micro/nano-plastics in the water of fish tanks. My research interests are in the field of biophotonics, nanomaterials science for sensing, electrochemical sensors, and data processing.

Guilherme Lopes received the Master in Physics Engineering from University of Aveiro. Currently, he is research fellow in the DigiAqua project.

Vinicius  Batista received the Master in Mecahnical Engineering from University of Aveiro. Currently, he is research fellow in the DigiAqua project.

Bárbara Vitorino Gonçalves, PhD in Molecular Biology from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, in the laboratory of Molecular Microbiology of Pathogenic Bacteria.  I am currently a researcher at the University of Aveiro, in the DigiAqua project, in which I focus on the identification of bacteria and the presence of microplastics from water aquaculture.

Dayana Aguiar received the Master in Applied Biochemical from University of Madeira. Currently, she is research fellow in the DigiAqua project.  

Sónia O. Pereira is a Junior Investigator at DigiAqua project and integrated member at i3N – Institute for Nanostructures, Nanomodelling and Nanofabrication & Department of Physics at University of Aveiro, since 2017. She holds LSc (2009) and MSc (2011) in Biotechnology and completed the PhD in Nanosciences and Nanotechnology in July 2016 at the same institution - CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials & Department of Chemistry at University of Aveiro, Portugal. Her research interest focuses on the synthesis and functionalization of nanomaterials aiming bioapplications, namely regarding the development of optical and electrochemical biosensors.     ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4174-7253 Scopus ID:  55992433600 Ciência ID: 1B13-CC2F-1D20