Luís Gato is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico(IST), Universidade de Lisboa (UL), with expertise in Renewable Energy, Fluid Mechanics, and Turbomachinery. He has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (IST, UL, 1989) and coordinates the IST Marine Renewable Energy Research Group of IDMEC/IST. Since 2012, he has been the Coordinator of the Specialisation Semester in Ocean Energy of the EUREC MSc in Renewable Energy at IST.

He is responsible for the IST Minor on Renewable Power Generation created in 2021. His research activities focus on Wave Energy. Particular areas of interest include the computational modelling and tank testing of wave energy converters (WECs) and power take-off equipment for WECs, including air turbines. Since 2018, he has been a Member of the Steering Committee of the Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems, International Energy Agency. He has published 97 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, has a h-index factor of 37 as per Scopus, and supervised 12 completed PhD theses. He also holds nine patents in the field of wave energy.