About

Dr Ana Margarida Bento is a postdoctoral researcher in the POSEIDON project (task leader), at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR) and the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). She is currently the co-coordinator of the R&D unit Offshore Structures & Foundations of Marine Energy group at CIIMAR. She developed her Ph.D. thesis in a partnership between the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) and FEUP, under the FCT PhD Program InfraRisk - Infrastructure Risk Analysis and Mitigation. The work carried out consisted of the development of a pragmatic methodology for the assessment and rating of risk associated with bridge foundation scour, using a semi-quantitative priority factor. The scour risk assessment was based on an interdisciplinary approach that combined experimental and numerical analysis to achieve a more advanced and comprehensive understanding of the scouring phenomenon in the vicinity of bridge foundations, under clear water and live bed flow conditions. She completed her MSc in Civil Engineering (Hydraulics and Water Resources) in 2013 at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). The master's thesis focused on the characterization of dam breaching following overtopping and the work was developed at LNEC. She did an international internship at Faculdades Integradas de Aracruz (FAACZ), from IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience), about the construction of irrigation dams in the Municipality of Aracruz. In 2014, she integrated the Hydraulics, Water Resources and Environment Division of FEUP as a master researcher in the project NUMPIERS - Numerical and experimental study of the flow around complex bridge piers. In July 2021, she joined the research project InfraCrit - Development of predictive system for critical infrastructure management, as a postdoctoral researcher at ISISE (UMinho). Her role consisted of management and risk prediction of critical infrastructures subject to flood events, on a GIS integrated platform. In May 2022, she joined the national project GIIP - Intelligent Management of Port Infrastructures as the technical and financial coordinator within UMinho. During her professional work, she collaborated with national companies such as IP and EDP, and several universities such as IST (Portugal), FAACZ (Brazil), FEUP (IHRH, PT), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), University of Minho (Portugal), Universidade Agostinho Neto (Angola), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). She is a member of FOAM@PT, Order of Engineers, International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR), Portuguese Association for Classification and Data Analysis (CLAD), Portuguese Water Resources Association (APRH), Specialized Committees on River Hydraulics (CEHF) and Water and Energy (CEAE), The World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure (PIANC), International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE), RISCOS and EGU and leadership roles in YPN PT IAHR underline her commitment. Her commitment extends beyond research, including serving on 3 thesis defence committees, including Masters and PhD, and co-supervising of 2 Bachelor and one Master students. She has served on the scientific committees of 21 journals and 10 conferences, is Associate Editor of 3 journals, Editor-in-Chief of NFE and Guest Editor of Ocean Engineering and Sustainability. As part of her pedagogical and teaching activities, Dr Ana Margarida Bento has recently (academic year 2023/24) started teaching curricular units at the Escola Superior Agrária, at the Instituto Polítécnico de Viana do Castelo (ESA - IPVC). Dr Ana Margarida Bento is also the author and co-author of several scientific articles in conferences and journals (H-index of 5, 18 documents and 93 citations in Scopus on 03/2024).

Career Type:

Scientist/Researcher/Academic

Organization Type:

Research Institutes and Centers

Expertise Fields/Interests:

My main research interests include: (i) hydraulics, water resources and environment (collapse of large infrastructures (dams and bridges), CFD tools, laboratory experiments, risk and reliability analysis, advanced characterization techniques, fluvial and maritime environments, hydraulic modelling); (ii) extreme events (hydrological modelling, statistical and uncertainty analyses, vulnerability assessment, climate changes, flood events, Bayesian network, AHP method, Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Machine learning); (iii) remote sensing (submersible cameras, image-based techniques, close-range photogrammetry, ADV, LSPIV, acoustic and resistive probes), (iv) Marine engineering (port infrastructures, Markov chains, predictive algorithms, infrastructures management); and (v) Offshore structures and foundations (wind turbines, energy converters, wave energy, protection mechanisms, Marine Renewable Energies (MREs), scour protections, complex foundations).

Major Achievements:

POSEIDON - Damage Prediction and Design of Scour Protections in Complex Foundations for Marine Renewable Energy Post-doc PTDC/ECI-EGC/5177/202 GIIP - Gestão Inteligente de Infraestruturas Portuárias / GIIP - Intelligent Management of Port Infrastructures Post-doc Fellow POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039890 InfraCrit - Desenvolvimento de um sistema de gestão para infraestruturas críticas / InfraCrit - Development of predictive system for critical infrastructure management Post-doc Fellow POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039555 NumPiers - Numerical and experimental study of the flow around complex bridge piers Research Fellow info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/COMPETE/134688/PT NetFluv - Research Network in Fluvial Hydraulics Master Student Fellow RECI/EMC-HID/0371/2012