Biography
Joana Mendonça is a Full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon. She is currently a member of the Governing Board at IST, responsible for the Campus at Oeiras-Taguspark and a member of the administration of Taguspark. She is also member of the Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research (IN+), where she is the president of the scientific council and where she develops research on management of technology and innovation, as well as on technology commercialization and adoption.
Joana has published about 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals, such as Research Policy, Small Business Economics and Technological Forecasting and Social Change, contributed to several books, and has published one book on Innovation and Design Thinking. She has supervised six doctoral students and 29 Masters’ students.
Joana was President of the Board of the Nacional Innovation Agency in Portugal (ANI) from 2021 to 2023. She was also Deputy Director at the Directorate for Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC) between 2010 and 2012. She was scientific director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Partnership (2012-2021), sponsored by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation and scientific coordinator at the Center of Engineering and Product Development, CEiiA, (2018-2021).
Joana joined the Engineering and Management Department at IST as an assistant professor in January 2017, became associate professor in January 2020 and did her Habilitation in December 2023.
Her teaching experience includes courses on Entrepreneurship Theory, Engineering Economics and Project Appraisal and Innovation Management and Design Thinking, to Undergraduates, Masters, and PhDs students. At the Engineering and Management Department, she co-coordinated the Master program in Engineering and Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Doctoral program in Engineering and Public Policy. In addition, she was a member of the executive committee of the Department and the Deputy-Director of the Committee for the competitiveness and funding of IST 20-30.
During 2016, she was an adviser to the Minister for Economy for issues related to Innovation and Technology and in 2009-2010, she was an adviser to the Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education, both in the Government of Portugal.
Joana obtained her PhD in Engineering and Industrial Management at IST in 2009. In 2008, she was an invited researcher at Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). She has a master’s degree in engineering policy and management of technology, and a Diploma in Chemistry from the University of Lisbon. She is the mother of two wonderful daughters.