Francisco Manuel Braz Fernandes
Francisco Manuel Braz Fernandes was born in 1951 in Beira, Mozambique. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Instituto Superir Técnico (Lisbon, 1976), had the “Diplôme d\'Études Approfondies - Métallurgie Spéciale et Matériaux” from University of Orsay (Paris XI, 1982), the PhD degree from École des Mines de Nancy (Nancy, 1985) and the Habilitation in Physical Metallurgy at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2008). He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Materials Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He is also Head of the Structural Materials Research Group from CENIMAT (Centro de Investigação de Materiais). The research activity where he is currently involved is mostly focused on shape memory alloys, from thin film deposition to thermomechanical processing (including severe plastic deformation), laser welding and shape memory/superelasticity applications (medicine, civil engineering and metalworking), using characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction, namely with synchrotron radiation, thermal analysis (DSC), mechanical testing and electrical resistance. He has more than 100 papers published in international scientific journals, and is responsible for the supervision or co-supervision of 7 PhD thesis and a large number of MSc dissertations already presented. As a hobby, he is a philatelist owning a stamp collection on Materials Science and Engineering.