John Mendonça, one of twelve candidates selected in the initiative’s inaugural edition in 2021, became the first CMU Portugal Program alum, having successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on December 12th,  2025, at Instituto Superior Técnico.

"Becoming the first graduate is a great honour. Being able to conduct research at both IST and CMU fostered both intellectual growth and collaboration, which I found was essential to advancing my work on multilingual dialogue evaluation”, John Mendonça. 

In Fall 2025, two CMU faculty members, Daragh Byrne (Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture) and Laurie Heller (Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences), visited Portugal for extended research visits. These visits supported ongoing collaborations with Portuguese research teams, helped advance work with CMU Portugal Affiliated Ph.D. students, and advanced joint research in HCI, design, auditory perception, and immersive technologies.

In 2025, Instituto Superior Técnico introduced the inaugural Master of Business Engineering (MBE) in Space Systems, the first of its kind in Portugal and among the early programs in Europe, tailored to the changing needs of the global space industry.

The opening event featured Zachary Manchester, a prominent researcher in satellite technology who has played a significant role in several CMU Portugal initiatives.

The research work, which uncovers how AI models memorize copyrighted content, led by André Duarte, a CMU Portugal Dual Ph.D. student in Language Technologies at Instituto Superior Técnico, INESC-ID, and Carnegie Mellon University, was highlighted in The Register, a leading British technology news and opinion website.

On February 19, 2026, the CMU Portugal Program hosted a spring luncheon for students currently studying in Pittsburgh to settle into the new semester and give them an opportunity to network and look ahead to the year. 

The CMU Portugal Program joined the worldwide celebrations of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on February 11th. Established by UNESCO in 2015, this day emphasizes the significance of women and girls in scientific areas.