Paulo Freitas has a Bsc in Physics from the University of Porto and a PhD in Physics from the Carnegie Mellon University (1986). After his PhD at the Carnegie Mellon University, he was a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the IBM Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, USA (1986-87). From 1990 to 2000, he was Director of the Solid State Technology Group at INESC and since 2000, Director of INESC-MN. Professor Freitas has been a full professor of Physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico since 2003, administering the Department of Physics since 2006. In 2007, he joined the Installation Commission of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Institute (INL) and was appointed Deputy Director General in 2009.

Professor Freitas received several awards and distinctions, namely: the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Prize in the area of Nanotechnologies, as PhD supervisor of H. Ferreira (2004); the Prémio Excelência, from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (2005-2006); the 2nd Finalist of Descartes Prize for Research (2007), awarded by The European Commission; and a Distinguished Lecturer award from the IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, USA (2008).

Professor Freitas’ current research interests include GMR heads for ultra-high density recording, spin-dependent tunneling junctions, non-volatile memories, magnetic multilayers and thin films, micro magnetism, transport phenomena, GMR sensors, bioelectronics and biosensors. He is author of more than 250 scientific articles, one patent and inventor of a bioelectronic device. Professor Freitas supervised 9 PhD students and develops an intense educational mission to train and coach new scientists and engineers.