Fernando Pires, born in Guinea-Bissau (1956), has a degree in architecture and urbanism from the University of Sarajevo (1983), a master's degree in Urban Design from ISCTE (1999) and a PhD in Heritage of Portuguese Influence in the World from the University of Coimbra (2017). Since 2019, he has been an integrated researcher at the DINÂMIA'CET Center for Studies on Socioeconomic Change and Territory, ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon. Between 1988 and 2023 he was a teacher at CED Pina Manique (Casa Pia de Lisboa), where he worked with secondary school and vocational school students. His research focuses on the Cape Verde archipelago and covers the areas of history, heritage, architecture, urban design, urbanism and planning. Her work focuses on the territorial and urban formation of the archipelago, addressing issues relating to the morphology of towns and cities and the transformation processes they have undergone over the centuries. What stands out in his research on Cape Verde's cities is above all the integrated and critical reading of history, which provides the perspective of the process over time, and of urban design, which allows us to see the transformations that have taken place from the perspective of space. Another clear and very important aspect of his work is a perspective that starts from within the archipelago, with the locals and the documentation produced on site as the fundamental elements of the research. Between 2018 and 2022, she participated in the project TechnetEmpire - Technical-Scientific Networks in the Formation of the Built Environment in the Portuguese Empire (1647-1871), (PTDC/ART-DAQ/31959/2017) which highlights the role of engineering training schools and their role in the construction of the empire. This project focused on the agents of the colonial apparatus (specialists and institutions) across time and space to understand how they created and formed networks of technoscience throughout the Portuguese Empire. It was also important to understand how these networks changed (or not) over time or across different geographies.