Gonçalo Figueira (Elvas, Portugal, 1971) is an Associate Professor at the Physics Department of Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon) and a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion (IPFN), with 30 years of experience in high-power, ultrafast laser science and technology. He graduated in Physics Eng. (IST, 1994) and obtained his PhD in Physics (Univ. Lisbon, 2001), including two years as a visiting scientist at the Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK). During his PhD, he developed an innovative terawatt laser system based on the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technique, the first of this type in Portugal. He was one of the leading designers of the Laboratory for Intense Lasers (L2I) at IST, a research facility launched in 1998 to host this laser system and a laser-plasma interaction target area. This work was the foundation for his postdoctoral (2001-02) and Assistant Researcher careers (2002-14) at IPFN. He supervised the upgrade of the laser system to deliver higher power, shorter pulses and introduced new lines of laser R&D, such as ultrabroadband amplification in OPCPA, diode-pumped solid-state amplifiers, supercontinuum generation in bulk materials, and advanced ultrashort diagnostics for innovative pulse shapes. He has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and holds one patent on a deformable mirror design for high-power lasers. He coordinates the L2I laser team, having supervised 3 postdoc researchers, 9 PhD students, 21 MSc students, 12 research placements and 3 laboratory technicians. His research interests include ultrabroadband OPCPA, diode-pumped solid-state laser, mid-IR laser science and technology, broadband pulse shaping, high-harmonic and supercontinuum generation in solid-state media, ultrashort pulse diagnostics, spatiotemporal distortions and shaping in ultrashort laser pulses. Since 2015 he has overseen undergraduate Physics Engineering courses such as Optics & Lasers and Introductory Experimental Physics, receiving 10 times the Excellent Teacher Award. He is the co-coordinator of the IST Minor in Photonics Technologies and since 2018 a member of the commission for the new experimental physics facilities and syllabus. He was PI in 5 national projects and successfully led the creation of the new Laserlab-Portugal distributed RI, obtaining 3 MEur in funding from FCT's National Roadmap of Research Infrastructures program (2017-21). He has coordinated 4 international and 8 national work packages in the framework in the EU projects Laserlab-Europe and ToIFE, with a combined budget of more than 650 kEur. Since 1994 he participated in more than 20 research projects. He was a member of the editorial board of High Power Laser Science and Engineering (2014-19) and Europhysics News (2014-21), and vice-editor/editor-in-chief of Gazeta de Física (2007-18). He has been a member of the Administration Board of IPFN (2008-) and the Governing Board of the APPLAuSE PhD programme (2013-), and was Vice-President for Academic Affairs of the Physics Department (2021-23). He was a proposal reviewer for the EC (ERC, EIC) and the Portuguese Innovation Agency (ANI). He was a member of the Scientific Technical Committee in 12 conferences and a member of the Organising Committee in 8 conferences. He was a visiting scientist at ICFO (Castelldefels, Spain, 2018) hosted by Prof. Dr. Jens Biegert, and has performed experiments at the Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK) and Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée (France). He is the coordinator of Science Communication at IPFN and has developed a large number of outreach activities for students and the general public, from talks, training events, workshops, exhibition modules, media articles and one book. He is the coordinator of the Optics and Lasers section of the Portuguese Physical Society and a member of the directive board of the Portuguese Society for Optics and Photonics.