Rui is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Pennsylvania with Professor Eric Stach. His research focuses on Liquid- and gas-phase operando structural and chemical analysis of metal nanocatalysts through Transmission Electron Microscopy.

Rui obtained his combined B.Sc./M.Sc. degree in 2013 from the College of Engineering at the University of Porto (Portugal) in Bioengineering after developing his Master’s thesis in King’s College London (UK) during a research internship with P. Khuloud Al-Jamal. He completed his Ph.D. in 2018 with Professor F. Marc Michel in geosciences/nanoscience at Virginia Tech (USA), where he studied the relation between surface structural and chemical properties of platinum nanoparticles and their catalytic activity in the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. Rui was the recipient of the 2015 Virginia Tech College of Science Make-a-Difference Scholarship ($ 10,000), won the Virginia Tech Nanotechnology Entrepreneurship Competition in 2017 ($ 5,000) and received the outstanding poster award at the Gordon Research Conference of Environmental Nanotechnology in 2015. He has given several presentations at conferences, including the 1^st International Conference on Reaction Kinetics, Mechanisms and Catalysis (RKMC 2018) and the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) of Inorganic Reaction Mechanisms 2017.