Isabel Catarino is an assistant professor in the Physics department at NOVA FCT, having coordinated the Integrated Master in Engineering Physics for over six years.

She holds a PhD in engineering physics from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2002), having invested in cryogenic engineering as her main R&D area. From cryogenics applications for space instrumentation and energy management, she has been turning to terrestrial applications of cryogenics for power grid applications and, collaterally, to studies on integrating renewable sources for the energy transition.

She was a fellow at the “Service des Basses Températures” of the “Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique” (CEA) in Grenoble (France), working on the design and optimisation of cryo-refrigerators and cryogenic thermal management devices.

In 2009 he was a visiting independent advisor at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL-NASA/Caltech) and a visitor at Caltech, California (USA), for one semester, also working on cryogenic thermal management devices.

The academic management tasks led to the establishment of contacts and collaboration with several companies and state laboratories, national and international, and since then, the R&D activities have become more transdisciplinary and focused on the energy transition.

In 2022 she received the 1st Pedagogical Innovation Award from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, for the project presented in the teaching of vibrations and waves, in addition to an honourable mention due to the teaching of experimental physics.