FCT scholarship winner for Best PhD Thesis in Applied and Computational Mechanics

Bernardo Ferreira, who was awarded an FCT doctoral scholarship at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, was awarded the prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in Applied and Computational Mechanics 2022 by APMTAC - Portuguese Association of Applied and Computational Theoretical Mechanics.

The award distinguished the project "Towards Data-driven Multi-scale Optimization of Thermoplastic Blends: Microstructural Generation, Constitutive Development and Clustering-based Reduced-Order Modeling" by Bernardo Ferreira, for whom this distinction "is recognition of my career as a student and researcher at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto".

Bernardo also revealed that he was encouraged to apply for this award by some professors, specifically Francisco Pires, Miguel Bessa and Pedro Camanho, and says that "despite the recognition given by the award itself, it was the goals I achieved in my PhD and the excellent research team I was part of that allowed me to continue my career at Brown University in the United States of America." He also stressed the importance of having been awarded the FCT PhDStudentship , as it was this support that "fully funded my PhD", and with it "FCT allowed me to complete my training and start my professional career as a researcher."

Bernardo Ferreira's research project consisted of the development of various computational tools which, when properly integrated, enable the design and optimization of composite materials using artificial intelligence. In particular, these tools are capable of generating reliable computer models of the material's microstructure, of mathematically describing the mechanical behavior of the different constituents, and of efficiently generating databases of the material's effective response.

Bernardo Ferreira's thesis is also a candidateforthe "ECCOMAS Award for the two best Phd Theses in 2022 on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering".