José Luis Figueiredo graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering - University of Porto (FEUP) in 1968, and became Teaching Assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering (DEQ) of FEUP in 1969. In 1970 he joined the Heterogeneous Catalysis group of David Trimm in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK, where he carried out research in Carbon Formation on Steam-Reforming Catalysts. He obtained the DIC (Diploma of the Imperial College) and the PhD (University of London) in 1975. He resumed his academic duties at DEQ/FEUP in January 1975, and created a research group in Heterogeneous Catalysis within the Chemical Engineering Research Centre (CEQ), which was at the origin of the Laboratory of Catalysis and Materials (LCM). He obtained his Habilitation degree in 1980 becoming full Professor of FEUP, where he is now Emeritus Professor. He is also a Member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences and of the Editorial Boards of the scientific journals CARBON (Elsevier), Fuel Processing Technology (Elsevier) and Periodica Polytechnica – Chemical Engineering (Budapest University of Technology and Economics). He received several scientific awards, including Stimulus for Scientific Excellence (Ministry for Science and Higher Education, 2004), Excellence in Research (FEUP, 2011), Lee Hsun Research Award on Materials Science (Institute of Metals Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2014) and Ferreira da Silva Prize (Portuguese Chemical Society, 2014).