International Award in Mechanical Engineering awarded to FCT Scholarship Holder

Vanessa Melo Magalhães, a doctoral fellow at the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), was the winner of the Emerald and EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award 2022, an international recognition of doctoral work addressing responsible management and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a positive impact at local and global levels.

The award was given to Vanessa Melo Magalhães for her doctoral thesis entitled Framework development for the prevention of food loss and waste: an analysis along the fresh food supply chain, whose main objective is to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of food loss and waste along fresh food supply chains and to provide an eight-step research framework to guide future research seeking to determine the most promising mitigation strategies. The thesis offers multidimensional and holistic methodologies, applied from a supply chain perspective, to analyze the interrelationships between the causes of food loss and waste and to evaluate and prioritize the most cost-effective mitigation strategies with the greatest environmental and social gains.

Vanessa Melo emphasizes that “winning this award is a great honor and recognition of my dedication, hard work, and excellence in research. This award demonstrates that research has contributed to the academic community and society." Her thesis contributes to achieving the goals set out in SDG 12, which aims to reduce food waste globally, from retail, consumers, and throughout production and supply chains. Vanessa Melo emphasizes that "this recognition is a strong motivation to continue pursuing excellence in my academic and professional endeavors, seeking to respond to the challenges raised in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."

For the researcher, it was very important to be able to count on the support and encouragement of Professors Luís Ferreira and Cristóvão Silva, as well as the support of FCT, which was fundamental for the completion of her doctoral work and the start of her research career at the University of Coimbra.

Although STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is a field in which women are still in the minority, Vanessa Melo does not believe she has faced any particular difficulties. However, she acknowledges that "STEM is still heavily dominated by men" and considers it essential to promote the presence and professional development of women in STEM fields, "as this will enable more and more women to lead projects and teams and develop their own companies, ensuring that technologies and products are designed with a wider range of perspectives in mind, helping to create a more equal and fair society where everyone's needs are taken into account."