Professor Romildo Dias Toledo Filho is a tenured professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and Executive Director of the UFRJ Science and Technology Park. He served as Vice Director from 2015 to 2019 and as Director from 2019 to 2023 of COPPE/UFRJ, the largest and highest ranked graduate school and research institute in engineering in Latin America. He is an elected Member of the National Academy of Engineering of Brazil, a Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), ranking among the world's leading scholars in green, low-carbon building materials and carbon sequestration technologies.
His core research focuses on sustainable construction materials, natural fiber composites, carbon capture technologies, and low-carbon building materials, with a number of pioneering achievements. He pioneered accelerated carbonation and carbon sequestration technologies for cement-based materials, enabling efficient CO₂ capture and storage throughout the production and service life of concrete. This approach significantly reduces the whole-life carbon footprint of building materials and contributes to the low-carbon transformation of the construction industry.
Addressing the technical bottlenecks of natural fiber building materials, he has systematically studied the application of sisal, jute, bamboo, and other agricultural plant fibers in cement-based composites. He has resolved key industrial challenges, including fiber degradation in alkaline environments, poor interfacial compatibility, and insufficient long-term stability, and established a comprehensive technical system for fiber interface modification and mechanical performance enhancement.
He has developed a series of low-cost, high-performance natural fiber composite materials, advancing the green development principle of substituting agricultural waste for industrial raw materials and replacing low-modulus synthetic fibers such as polypropylene and nylon. This work has contributed significantly to the lightweight, resource-efficient, and low-carbon transformation of the building materials industry. The research program is carried out in two laboratories he founded and coordinates at COPPE/UFRJ, namely NUMATS, the Sustainable Materials and Technologies Center, created in 2013, and LCI, the Urban Living Laboratory for Smart Construction, created in 2018.
In terms of academic achievements, he has published 335 publications indexed in the Web of Science. He has been listed in every edition since 2020 of the Stanford University and Elsevier ranking of the world's top 2% most-cited scientists. In the most recent edition, he ranked within the top 0.43% in Building and Construction, maintaining a strong international academic profile. He has trained 126 researchers to completion, including 58 doctoral theses, 78 master's dissertations, and 17 postdoctoral programs.
For his outstanding contributions to the research and industrial transformation of low-carbon cement and concrete, natural fiber composites, and carbon sequestration technologies, Professor Romildo has received numerous prestigious national and international honors. His awards include the Luiz Alfredo Falcão Bauer Award from the Brazilian Concrete Institute (IBRACON), and the FAPERJ Innovation Award in the public sector category together with the COPPE Lobo Carneiro Academic Merit Award, both in 2025, as well as the Vale and CAPES Science and Sustainability Award.
