Isabel Capeloa Gil
Rector, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Isabel Capeloa Gil is the Rector of the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP) and President of the International Federation of Catholic Universities. She is a Full Professor of Culture Studies at the School of Human Sciences. Having grown up in China, she studied in Lisbon (U. Lisbon), Munich (Ludwig Maximilian University) and Chicago and holds a PhD in German Studies (UCP). Previously, she was Vice-Rector for Research and Internationalization (2012-2016) and the Dean of the School of Human Sciences (2005-2012) of the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP). Isabel Gil has been especially interested in researching issues of diversity and conflict and has structured her work around the exploration of the disciplinary boundaries between the arts and other disciplines.
She is a passionate advocate of international education and works consistently to develop international research networks, exploring the different ways in which the practice of the arts and humanities is pivotal to advance a more sustainable and intellectually robust global education agenda. Her research is currently published in Portuguese, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. She is the author of over 182 publications, bridging cultural theory, interarts studies, visual culture, culture and conflict. Her latest books are Hazardous Future: Disaster, Representation and the Assessment of Risk (with Christoph Wulf, New York, 2015) and The Ballets Russes. Modern Times After Dhiaghilev (with PcPinto, Lisbon, 2018) . She was a founding member and is a senior researcher at the Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC), where she coordinates the research group Culture, Art and Conflict (CAC). As an international scholar, Prof. Gil has held numerous visiting professorships at prestigious universities such as LMU University, Munich, Hamburg University,Ca’Foscari University, Venice, the Houston School of Film at the National University ofIreland, PUC Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and USJ (Macao). She was a Visiting Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg (Berlin) and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (U. Stanford). Amongst her honours are a Fulbright Fellowship, and DAAD, FLAD and Gulbenkian Scholarships.
Isabel Capeloa Gil has been a regular consultant for research foundations such as the Danish Research Council, FAPESP (Brazil), the FCT and FLAD in Portugal as well as the Luso-American Comission (Fulbright). She was an evaluator of the prestigious Excellence Initiative of the Germnan Federal Government and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and is Chair of the Humanities panel at the Danish Research Council.
Isabel Capeloa Gil is furthermore Honorary Fellow at the IGRS, School of Advanced Studies, University of London. In 2018, she became Chair of the Research Leadership Forum of the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils. She is also a Member of the European Council of Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the Gulbenkian Foundation. Since 2016, she has been the President of the Board of the UCP Foundation.
