Full Professor at Dep. Chemistry, University of Aveiro, Director the Portuguese NMR Centre, Portuguese Government representative in the European Commission Technology Council for Advanced Materials, ex-Director (2002-2021) of CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (ca. 480 people), and Coordinator of the Council of Associated Laboratories. Ph.D. in 1991 from Dep. Chemistry, Univ. Cambridge, UK, followed by a post-doc in the same department. Published >570 research papers and 5 patents, with GOOGLE SCHOLAR 33,000 citations, h=88 (SCOPUS 27,000 citations, h=76). Gave ca. 300 talks at conferences; supervised 43 post-docs, 36 PhD students. Member of European Academy of Sciences (EURASC), Académie Royal de Belgique, Lisbon Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and of the ChemPubSoc Europe. Received the Medal of Scientific Merit from the Portuguese Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, the French-Portuguese prize from the Société Chimique de France, Madinabeitia-Lourenço award from the Real Sociedad Española de Química, the prizes Romão Dias, Fraústo da Silva and Ferreira da Silva (Portuguese Chemical Society). Chaired the 'Commission on Inorganic and Mineral Structures' and is consultant of the 'Commission on NMR Crystallography and Related Methods' of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). Chairs ERC Consolidator Grants Panel P11 (Materials Engineering). He is/was member of the editorial boards of Chemistry - a European Journal, EurJIC, Solid State NMR, Solid State Sciences, and editor of the RSC Nanoscience and Nanotechnology book series. -----PRESENT RESEARCH INTERESTS----- Microporous transition metal and Ln silicates, photoluminescent Ln-bearing materials, and Metal Organic Frameworks for sensing applications, e.g., nanothermometry, and Li batteries. Organic-inorganic hybrid ferroelectrics. Nanosystems for multimodal imaging, therapy and drug delivery. Solid-state NMR. X-ray diffraction. -----MAIN SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS ---- A) Created a field of zeolitic materials: microporous transition metal and Ln silicates (ca. 100 novel Ti, Zr, V, Nb, Cu, Sn, Ca, Y, Ce and Ln silicates - AV and AM materials). Archetypal solid is titanium silicate ETS-10 (Nature, 367: 347, 1994). Applications in luminescence (JACS, 137: 3051, 2015), catalysis, gas sorption and separation, ion exchange, magnetism, MRI contrast agents and in pharma. B) Designed photoresponsive crystalline organic-inorganic hybrid ferroelectrics (JACS, 142: 16990, 2020, JACS, 145: 13663, 2023. C) Developed luminescent Ln-bearing Metal Organic Frameworks and coordination polymers (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 47: 1080, 2008), e.g., for nanothermometry (Adv. Funct. Mater., 25: 2824, 2015), and conductive MOF for Li batteries (JACS, 147: 63, 2025). D) Developed oxide nanoparticles for imaging contrast agents (ACS Nano, 4: 5339, 2010), bimodal imaging (Biomater., 33: 925, 2012), and thermometry (Nature Nanotech, 11: 851, 2016; Adv. Mater., 35: 4868, 2013). E) Designed materials for small-drugs release (including NO, JACS, 133: 6396, 2011). F) Devised materials for a sustainable World (e.g., anti-mosquito nets, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 9: 22112, 2017; and uranyl capture Angew. Chem., Intl. Ed., 58: 1, 2019). G) Designed (ca. 40) heterogeneous catalysts based on mesoporous silicas derivatized with metal complexes (J. Mater. Chem., 12: 1735, 2002). H) Elucidated the structure of minerals by NMR and XRD (JACS, 114: 6867, 1992; Am. Mineral., 103: 812, 2018). I) Pioneered development of solid-state NMR techniques for studying quadrupolar nuclei (Solid State NMR, 21: 61, 2002; Magn. Reson. Chem., 41: 679, 2003) and 1H (J. Mag. Reson., 199: 111, 2009). ------SOCIETAL IMPACT------ Microporous zirconium silicate AV-13 (Inorg. Chim Acta, 356: 19, 2003), slightly modified, was exploited (Rocha consultant) by AstraZeneca) to treat hyperkalemia (excess K+ in serum). New drug Lokelma, approved by FDA and EMA, on the market and in Portuguese hospitals.