Vítor J.P. Vilar earned his BSc (2001) and PhD (2006) in Chemical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). He was a postdoctoral researcher at FEUP and Plataforma Solar de Almería (2006-2009), Assistant Researcher at LSRE-LCM/FEUP (2009-2013) under the Ciência 2008 FCT program, Special Visiting Researcher at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, under Brazilian Program Science without Borders (2014-2017), Principal Researcher at LSRE-LCM/FEUP under the Investigator FCT 2013 (2014-2018) and CEEC Individual 2017 (2019-2022) programs. Currently, he holds a permanent position as Principal Researcher at LSRE-LCM/ALiCE/FEUP, where he pursues his research and teaching career. He is an Integrated Member of ALiCE and LSRE-LCM, Coordinator of the research group Environmental Engineering of LSRE-LCM, and Coordinator of consulting services in the environmental field of ALiCE, providing advisory services to public institutions and industry.

He is the Executive Editor of the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, member of the Environmental Biotechnology Division of the European Federation of Biotechnology, member of the scientific committee of the International Ph.D. School on AOPs, and coordinator of the Iberoamerican Conference on Advanced Oxidation Technologies (CIPOA).

He has a consistent track record of high-profile outputs, with more than 500 scientific publications, including 4 books of proceedings, 10 book chapters, 13 editorials, 1 opinion paper, 257 papers in international scientific periodicals with peer review (h-index 58; > 11 000 citations), 8 papers in national scientific periodicals and more than 300 communications in conference proceedings, co-inventor of 4 patents, receiving a total of 8 prizes. He was included in a list of the most-cited scientists in the world (World’s Top 2% Scientists list) released by Stanford University in 2021 and 2022 and recognized in Research.com 2023 rankings.

He was/is a leader or partner in different R&D projects (15 international, 31 national and 8 contracts with private companies) obtained from competitive agencies (FCT, Interreg, WaterJPI, Water4All, ANI, CCDR-N, P2020, CNPq, CAPES, PRR) and companies (AdDP, EFACEC, SULDOURO, SPIKE & COGS, DS Smith) of basic and applied research and mobility/network, with relevant impacts: e.g. MIÑO-MINHO, IBEROMARE, HIDROCORK, AIRPHOTOXI, ALGAEVALUE, AdvancedLFT, NEREUS, PIV4Algae, Healthy-Waters, HyGreen&LowEmissions, NOR-WATER, OZONE4WATER, SERPIC, LigTech, PhotoBioValue, CO2-to-CH4, ATE, BlueWWater, NeWater, Water4Reuse. He got research funds exceeding 6 million euros, including R&D projects, Ph.D. scholarships, post-doctoral scholarships, and research contracts. He also provides advisory services to public institutions and the environmental & water industry.

He has mentored 75 researchers (granted by projects and mobility students), 41 master students, 32 Ph.D. students, and 40 post-doctoral researchers. He was able to attract several PhD students (58) and doctorates (29) from various countries (e.g. Brazil, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, UK, Italy) to perform their research work at LSRE-LCM under his guidance, most of them with scholarships from their countries or EU funding. He is currently the supervisor/co-supervisor of 6 researchers granted by projects, 2 master students, 19 Ph.D. students (18 granted by FCT), and 4 Junior researchers (granted by FCT and “la Caixa” Foundation).