Dr. Mendes is affiliated with Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal (UTL), and did SSME work at Virginia Tech’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) as a visiting faculty. He entered academia after more than 15 years of experience in software and Information Systems, having filled engineering and managerial positions in the civil service and in manufacturing and service companies. His Ph.D. in Management Systems Engineering (VA Tech, 1990) gives him a priviledged perspective of engineering and technology management. He was part of the team that launched the MBA program at Catholic University of Lisbon and was also a visiting faculty at University of Texas in Austin.
At UTL, besides pioneering pluri-disciplinary senior design projects, Dr. Mendes introduced and lectured a “Technology Transfer” course, where engineering graduate students design all required steps to bring an invention to the market as a successful product. At UTL, he has also lectured on Organizational Behavior, Introductory Management for engineers, Operations Management, Simulation, and on both design and construction Project Management. Besides SSME, is interests are Systems Thinking and socio-technical System Dynamics, with applications to heath care (epidemiology) and defense strategy, and the engineering of organizational strategy