Do you want to know more about Francisco?

Do you want to know more about Francisco?

Francisco Mesquita

Another weekly blog post! This time about Francisco. Check it out!

    • How is it living in a different country?

Living in a different country is absolutely a challenging experience. Not that there were no responsibilities before, but now they are different. Also the fact that, at the beginning, you are alone and far away from everyone you know is quite tough.

But then everything gets better and I don’t even consider anymore coming back to the way I was living before. The new responsibilities are now part of the routine, I made some new friends and, being in the centre of Europe, I have the chance to travel anywhere I want easily.

Particularly about Leuven, I like that it’s a small city, driven by the University (meaning that there are a lot of students living here) and, typical of a Flemish city, everyone rides their bike every day! And that is the part I love the most!

    • What motivated you to be in the FiBreMoD project?

I arrived in Leuven some months before the FiBreMoD project began. I did my master thesis work here and worked with the same supervisors as I’m doing now. Therefore, I learnt about the project from them.

There was a project about fibre hybrid composites, which was the same subject as I had worked during my master thesis. The choice was easy! I already wanted to do a PhD before, and this change was perfect for me. I could continue to work in Leuven and in something that I like.

    • What are your thoughts and first impressions about the whole FiBreMoD project?

We hear that there are some tasks bigger than ourselves… This is one of those tasks! The project is huge, with a lot of people involved and many areas of research. It really feels that we will need to work as a team to accomplish anything.

Working with all of this important people in the composites field is also very interesting. Seeing all these people working with a common ground motivates me to work harder and also feel I can get there someday.

    • Any dream for your future you would like to share?

The fact that I’m interested in composites is all due to my experiences rowing. There, most of the equipment we use is made of carbon fibre composites. My dream for many years was to be a professional athlete. But since, unfortunately, that is impossible in Portugal, I had to turn to the closest option, which is to work with the equipment. My dream for the future would be to work in one of the companies that produces the boats for rowing.

    • If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?

Being a PhD is very exhausting… If I could choose a superpower, it would be to be able to fall asleep instantaneously. I know, it’s a boring one, but wouldn’t it be great to do it?