Contacts Maria da Graça Carvalho

Science and Innovation at the service of people and the planet

Science and Innovation at the service of people and the planet

My training and professional experience as an engineer always involved me in the subjects of Science and Innovation.

Clean energy for all.

At Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon), with which I maintain the link of full professor, my classes focused on the areas of Energy, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development. It was also to these themes that I preferentially dedicated my activity as a researcher.

A more humanized digital society.

In my lexicon, “digitalization” is synonymous with “democratization”, in terms of empowering populations and accessing information around the world. I see digitalization and Artificial Intelligence as powerful tools for building a more prosperous, more sustainable, and more just society.

Consumers at the center of political decisions.

The common market is one of the foundations of the project that brought us to the present European Union. However, its potential is still far from being achieved, especially with regard to the “empowerment” of consumers in the different member states.

Women's rights, gender equality.

When I arrived at Instituto Superior Técnico, I was one of two women to enter the Mechanical Engineering course, among about a hundred men. Several decades later - in Portugal and in most European countries -, women definitely affirmed themselves in higher education, even becoming the majority among new graduates in several areas, from the Judiciary to Medicine.