Pedro Camanho is the University of Porto’s Researcher of the Year

Pedro Ponces Camanho is the University of Porto’s Researcher of the Year

Text: Raquel Pires Photo: reserved rights

Pedro Ponces Camanho was unanimously declared the winner of this year’s edition of the U.Porto Scientific Excellence Award. At the age of 51, he created analysis models for advanced materials that are used by engineers worldwide – known as the Camanho Model – and has excelled in the development of new techniques for the experimental characterization of composite materials, currently used by the automotive and aeronautical industries.

Pedro Ponces Camanho, full Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) and researcher at the Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering (INEGI), is the winner of this year’s edition of the University of Porto Scientific Excellence Award, a prize instituted by the University with the aim of recognizing those among its professors and scientists who stand out in the field of scientific research.

I am very honoured to receive the Scientific Excellence Award of the University of Porto. The University of Porto was where I took my first steps in scientific research, and it also provided the necessary conditions to perform the research that culminated in this award. It is a recognition that extends to my PhD students and colleagues who have inspired me over the years,” affirms the researcher.

With a degree in Mechanical Engineering from FEUP (1995), Pedro Ponces Camanho received his PhD in 1999 from the Department of Aeronautics at the prestigious Imperial College London (United Kingdom). That same year he returned to Portugal to join FEUP’s Mechanical Engineering Department. assuming the position of director of the Structural Integrity Unit at INEGI. Full Profes-sor at the Faculty of Engineering since 2014, he is president of the Associated Laboratory of Energy, Transport and Aeronautics (LAETA) and vice presi-dent of INEGI.

Pedro Camanho’s main research interests focus on the study and simulation, at various temporal and spatial scales, of the deformation and fracture mechanisms of advanced composite materials. He is also a recognized expert in the study and development of non- -conventional composite materials, such as hybrid, nano-structured composite materials with functional gradient properties and multifunctional composites.

AN AWARD-WINING CAREER Throughout his career, Pedro Camanho has coordi -nated a variety of different research projects funded by the European Space Agency, Airbus, NASA, Embraer, Daimler, Aernnova, the European Union, FCT and the US Air Force. Between 2000 and 2011, he was a visiting scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, in 2006 receiving NASA’s H.J.E. Reid Award for Outstanding Scientific Paper. He was Royal Society Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London (2005) and visiting professor at Laboratoire de Mécanique et Technologie, École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, Université Paris-Saclay (2014). He has published around 130 scientific papers, which have received over 11,300 independent citations.

More recently, he has developed a model – known as the Camanho Method or Camanho Model – which has now been incorporated into the latest version of Digimat, a reference software used by engineers around the world.

Pedro Ponces Camanho was elected a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a professional and multidisciplinary British institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. This title corresponds to the highest degree awarded by what is the oldest aeronautical society in the world. In the group of elected fellows there are only professionals with notable contributions to the advancement of aeronautics. Founded in 1866, the Royal Aeronautical Society is the oldest aeronautical society in the world.