Biography
Heitor Alvelos is Full Professor of Design and Director of The ID+ Research Center at The University of Porto, Portugal, where he coordinates the Unexpected Media Lab. He currently serves as Vice-President of the European Academy of Design and is a Member of Academia Europaea and the European Science Foundation. Professor Alvelos has held prior posts in academic institutions throughout Portugal and internationally, including Course Director of the PhD in Design programme at The University of Porto from 2011 to 2024; Chairman of the Scientific Board (HSS) at The Foundation for Science and Technology from 2016 to 2022, Outreach Director for the Digital Media programme at The University of Austin Portugal from 2010 to 2014, and Senior Tutor in the Drawing Studio at The Royal College of Art, United Kingdom, from 1999 to 2001. Heitor has coordinated a wide range of national and international research projects since 2007 and throughout his academic career, including curation of the FuturePlaces Media Lab for Citizenship from 2008 to 2017 with the University of Texas at Austin, United States, and the recent FCT/H2020 project Anti-Amnesia: Design Research as an Agent for Narrative and Material Regeneration and Reinvention of Vanishing Portuguese Manufacturing Cultures and Techniques.