About

Maria Paula Mendes holds a PhD (2013) and a Master’s degree in Earth Resources (2004) from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), as well as a degree in Water Resources Engineering (2001) from the University of Évora. She was awarded an FCT doctoral scholarship (SFRH/BD/38903/2007) and an FCT postdoctoral scholarship (SFRH/BPD/110346/2015). In 2019, she received a mobility grant from the Fundación Carolina (Spanish Government) to conduct research at the University of Seville, Spain. In 2023, she secured an individual contract as an Assistant Researcher through FCT’s Individual Scientific Employment Stimulus competition in Earth and Environmental Sciences, focusing on Waste Management and Valorisation. In 2021, she received the “Alfredo da Silva and Entrepreneurship” award as Principal Investigator (PI) of the ReDuCe project, “Use of Disposable Mask Residues in Composites with Different Formulations.” In 2023, she earned an Honourable Mention in the same competition as a team member of the Fueling Innovation project, “A New Era for Safe and Sustainable Transport of Green Energy.” That same year, she also received the VI Edition Circular Seas Award in the category “Research Projects of the League for the Protection of Nature,” as a team member of the BLOCOYSTER project. MPM is the author of 42 ISI/WoS articles, with 909 citations excluding self-citations from all authors. She served as Principal Coordinator of the Erasmus+ educational project BeWare — Development of Professional Courses in Building Resilience and Sustainability to Extreme Weather Events (2021-1-PT01-KA220-VET-000027997), and as Local Coordinator of the ERASMUS+ project RESONATE- "Sustainable Water Management". She is currently involved in two HORIZON-MISS-2023-CLIMA-01 projects—one as IST-ID lead and Work Package Leader, and the other as a member of the research team—and has recently completed her participation as a team member in the MIT-CITIESTWINS project, A Digital Framework to Merge Durability Data, Maintenance Models and Energy Retrofitting Decisions (2022.15504.MIT). Dr. Mendes is presently the Principal Investigator of the project TWIST — Transforming Waste into Opportunity: Exploring the Risks and Benefits of Recycling Plastic Fibres from the Textile Industry in Mortars (2024-12-01 to 2030-11-30).

Career Type:

Scientist/Researcher/Academic

Organization Type:

Research Institutes and Centers

Expertise Fields/Interests:

Climate change and extreme weather events adaption

Major Achievements: