Isabel Sá Correia, professor at the Department of Bioengineering of Instituto Superior Técnico and researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (IBB), gave her last lecture on February 7, in the auditorium of Técnico Congress Centre.
Professor João Pedro Conde, Head of the Department of Bioengineering, opened the “honouring session” and highlighted: “We had several discussions. We didn’t always choose the same paths, but we always chose the same port”, said professor João Pedro Conde.
Her”unbeatable dynamism” and “young spirit”, and the “commitment and rigour that she puts in everything she does” were the highlights of the “brief biographical notes”, listed by the President of Técnico, professor Rogério Colaço.
Isabel Sá Correia dedicated 47 years of her life to Técnico. She made her debut in teaching with professor Júlio Maggiolly Novais, she was a professor and a researcher, she was part of the General Council of Universidade de Lisboa and president of the Portuguese Society of Microbiology (SPM) from 2009 and 2020. “As president of the SPM, she established the 17th September as the International Microorganism Day”, recalled professor Jorge Pedrosa, the current president of SPM.
Professor Isabel Sá Correia recalled her early days teaching “I spent a lot of time reading and I came to the conclusion that I knew nothing”. She decided to do the “Estudos Avançados de Oeiras” programme at the Instituto Gulbenkian Ciência (IGC), coordinated by professor Nicolau van Uden, who supervised her PhD in “Yeast Physiology”. It was precisely this subject that brought Técnico its first patent, together with the Instituto Superior de Agronomia and the Raposeira Cellars. (The conversation about Técnico’s first patent for the podcast “110 Histórias | 110 Objetos” is available here).
