Ricardo received his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering in 2006 from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal. Afterward, he was a post-doc fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, from 2006 to 2011. He was also an invited researcher in PPG Industries from 2008 to 2011. In 2011, in collaboration with the National Laboratory of Energy and Geology, Portugal, Ricardo was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship. Since 2014, he has been a Research Scientist at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. Ricardo has more than 20 years of experience developing mathematical optimization models and methods to find optimal solutions that improve operations, reduce costs, or maximize profit. Specifically, he develops methods based on stochastic optimization, decomposition algorithms, and deterministic linear and nonlinear combinatorial optimization models. He has focused on applications in process systems engineering, integration of renewable energy in energy systems, and trajectory planning for autonomous underwater vehicles.