Ana Margarida Bento

Ph.D. Ana Margarida Bento is a post-doctorate researcher at POSEIDON project, at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR) and the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). She is currently the co-coordinator of the R&D unit Offshore Structures & Foundations of Marine Energy group at CIIMAR. She developed her Ph.D. thesis in a partnership between the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) and FEUP, under the FCT PhD Program InfraRisk – Infrastructure Risk Analysis and Mitigation. The work carried out consisted of the development of a pragmatic methodology for the assessment and rating of risk associated with bridge foundation scour, using a semi-quantitative priority factor. The scour risk assessment was based on an interdisciplinary approach that combined experimental and numerical analysis to achieve a more advanced and comprehensive understanding of the scouring phenomenon in the vicinity of bridge foundations, under clear water and live bed flow conditions. She completed her MSc in Civil Engineering (Hydraulics and Water Resources) in 2013 at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). The master's thesis focused on the characterization of dam breaching following overtopping and the work was developed at LNEC. She did an international internship at Faculdades Integradas de Aracruz (FAACZ, Brazil), from IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience), about the construction of irrigation dams in the Municipality of Aracruz. In 2014, she integrated the Hydraulics, Water Resources and Environment Division of FEUP as a master researcher in the project NUMPIERS – Numerical and experimental study of the flow around complex bridge piers. In July 2021, she joined the research project InfraCrit – Development of predictive system for critical infrastructure management, as a postdoctoral researcher at ISISE (UMinho). Her role consisted of management and risk prediction of critical infrastructures subject to flood events, on a GIS integrated platform. In May 2022, she joined the national project GIIP – Intelligent Management of Port Infrastructures as the technical and financial coordinator within UMinho. During her professional work, she collaborated with national companies such as IP and EDP, and several universities such as IST (Portugal), FAACZ (Brazil), FEUP (Portugal), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), University of Minho (Portugal), and Universidade Agostinho Neto (Angola). She is a member of FOAM@PT, Order of Engineers, International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR), Portuguese Association for Classification and Data Analysis (CLAD), Portuguese Water Resources Association (APRH), Specialized Committee on River Hydraulics (CEHF), Specialized Committee on Water and Energy (CEAE), Hydraulics (CEHF), and International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE). Within IABSE, she is currently contributing to the task groups TG5.2 and TG6.1. From 2018 to 2020, she joined the leadership team of Young Professionals Network of the Portuguese IAHR. She co-supervised a master's student of Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL), from 2019-2020. She joined the scientific committee of four peer-reviewed journals (as a reviewer) and of two conferences, and has taught an academic session to a class of Civil Engineering master's students of ISEL. Recently, she was involved in the jury committee of 2 thesis defences, a Master's and a Doctorate's. She aided the preparation of proposals for FCT R&D Projects (as a team member in 2020 and as a co-PI in 2022). She is also involved in international scientific proposals, 2 as a team member and 1 as a leader. Ph.D. Ana Margarida Bento is also the author and co-author of several peer-reviewed journal and conference scientific articles (h-index of 3, 9 publications and 42 citations in the Scopus at 02/2023).