Profile

Professor “Catedrático Jubilado” of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) Lisbon University. Born 1933 in Lisbon. After obtaining the degree of Chemical Engineer at IST in 1956 and a doctorate (Dr, rer. nat.) by the University of Heidelberg in 1961, was elected in a public competition at IST Professor “Catedrático” of Industrial Organic Chemistry in 1962. In parallel with lecturing Organic Chemistry and Reaction Mechanisms, carried out research in the field of Physical Organic Chemistry, namely about radical-anions and their ion pairs with metal cations of main groups I and II by studying their reactuions as well as by electron paramagnetic spectrometry, Studied also kinetics of intramolecular electron transfer in radical-anions. Invited researcher at Max-Planck-Instute for Coal Research in Mühlheim/Ruhr in 1976, guest professor at Washington University in 1977 and at Graz University in 2005. As author of Portuguese tranlations of Chemistry books and repertories of chemical substances from German, English and several other European languages, it became necessary to study systematic organic nomenclature according to the recommendations of IUPAC, International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry. This led to a collaboration with IUPAC, culminating in the election of secretary of ICTNS, Interdivisional Committee for Nomenclature, Terminology and Symbols from 2012 to 2020. More recently, in the frame of studies of History of Chemistry and other Sciences, the discovery of an unpublished German manuscript dated from the XVIth Century of a Swiss scholar containing what can be considered as a Natural History of Portugal, which had never before had been analysed by Science historians led to its transcription and Portuguese translation.. Election as corresponding member of the Science Class of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences in 1981 and as full member of its Literary Class in 2016.