José Luis Encarnação was born in Portugal, passed there the school „Escola Salesiana do Estoril“, and is living in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1959. He was since 1975 a full professor of Computer Science at the Technische Universität Darmstadt ( TUD ), Germany, and there the head of its Interactive Graphics Research Group ( TUD – GRIS ). Since October 2009 he is Professor Emeritus of the TUD. From 1987 to 2006 he was the founding director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics ( IGD ) in Darmstadt and retired from the Fraunhofer in 2006. Professor Encarnação was in 1980 one of the founders of EUROGRAPHICS, from 1980 to 1984 its first chairman and from 1985 to 1991 the chairman of its Professional Board. He has the EUROGRAPHICS Membership No. 1.

Professor Encarnação holds a Diploma ( Dipl.-Ing. ) and a doctorate ( Dr.-Ing. ) in electrical engineering from the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), where he completed his Ph.D. studies in Computer Graphics as holder of a scholarship of the Gulbenkian Foundation. In 1967 he started his career in Computer Graphics at the TUB and at the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin. Before moving to Darmstadt in 1975, he held research and academic positions at the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin ( 1968-1972 ) and at the Universität Saarbrücken ( 1972 – 1975 ).

For outstanding professional, technical and scientific achievements with a strong impact in science and industry he received among many other awards the Karl-Heinz-Beckurts Award in 1989, the Steve Coons Award from ACM-SIGGRAPH ( USA ) in 1995, the Konrad-Zuse-Medal by the German Computer Society ( GI ) in 1997, the Fraunhofer Medal from the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in 2001 and the Golden Honorary Medal of the Universität Rostock in 2012 .

Professor Encarnação is today active as a Senior Technology and Innovation Advisor to the European Union (EU), to Governments, to multinational companies, to Research Institutions and Organizations, and to Foundations. He is hereby involved in the development of Research Agendas and Innovation Strategies for the Socio-Economic Development, specially in Emerging Economies ( BRICS countries ). He is also very active in and responsible for ICT and for the ICT related activities of the German Science Academies ( acatech and BBAW ) .