Carlos Fiolhais - Biography#

Carlos Fiolhais was born in Lisbon in 1956. He graduated in Physics at the University of Coimbra in 1978 and got his PhD in Theoretical Physics at the Goethe Universität in Frankfurt / Main, Germany, in 1982. He is a Professor at the Department of Physics, University of Coimbra since 2000. He was a professor in the United States and Brazil.

He is the author of more than 150 scientific papers in international journals (one with more than 13,000 citations, the most cited article with an author in a national institution) and more than 400 educational and outreach articles. He has published more than 50 books, including the bestseller "The Fun of Physics", "The New Fun of Physics", "Brief History of Science in Portugal", "Darwin Shooting an other Science Stories", and "Popcorn with cellphones and Other Stories of False Science", by Gradiva; "History of Science in Portugal" (Arranha-Céus); "Science in Portugal", an essay by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation; series of children's science books "Playing Science", by Bizancio (co-authorship); numerous highschool textbooks by Texto Editores (co-authorship); the university textbook "Fundamentals of Equilibrium Thermodynamics" by the Gulbenkian Foundation (co-authorship); etc..The first two were international editions in Spain, Italy and Brazil. He was also the author of 58 book chapters and 38 prefaces, editor of 8 scientific books, some of them international editions, and translator of 8.

His research interests focus on Computational Condensed Matter Physical, History of Science and Physics Education. He was founder and director of the Center for Computational Physics, University of Coimbra, where the promoted the installation of the largest computer Portuguese for scientific computing. He has coordinated several research projects and supervised several M.Sc. and Ph.D. students. He participated in numerous conference promoting science and scientific culture. He created and directs the "Rómulo - Ciência Viva Center of the University of Coimbra".

He was director of the journal "Gazeta de Física", of the Portuguese Society of Physics, and was a member of committees of international journals in Physics (in 2011 he chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee of the "European Physics Journal"). He was Director of the Computer Center of the University of Coimbra, Chairman of the Interdisciplinary Research Institute of the University of Coimbra, and member of the Scientific Board of the Foundation for Science and Technology - FCT. He is a regular contributor to the national newspaper "Público". He was a consultant to the programs "Megascience" and "ABCiência" for the television channels SIC and RTP and to the Museum of Science of the University of Coimbra (Micheletti prize for best science musueum). He was Director of the General Library of the University of Coimbra (who has the trademark "European Heritage"), where he leaded several projects on books and culture, and created the Integrated Library Service of the University of Coimbra - SIBUC the digital repositories "Estudo Geral" and "Almamater". He is co-founder of the company Coimbra Genomics. He is co-responsible for the blog "De Rerum Natura".

He has won several awards: in 1994 the Latin Union Prize for scientific translation; in 2005 Golden Globe of Merit and Excellence in Science awarded by SIC; in 2005 the Order of Henry Navigator; and in 2006 the Innovation Prize by Third Millennium Forum and the Rómulo de Carvalho Prize by the University of Évora; and in 2012 the BBVA Prize for the best article in teaching Physics in the Ibero-American space.

He has been in the last six years responsible for the programs on "Knowledge" of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, Lisbon, where he created the GPS - Global Portuguese Scientists network.