Joaquim Marçalo was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1957. He graduated in chemical engineering in 1980 at the Technical University of Lisbon (IST – Instituto Superior Técnico). He then joined the Portuguese Nuclear Laboratory (later ITN) as a research assistant, working in radiochemistry and actinide chemistry. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 1990 from IST with work in lanthanide and actinide coordination and organometallic chemistry, performed at ITN under the supervision of Dr. António Pires de Matos. He continued his career at the ITN, first as auxiliary researcher (1991-2005) and later as principal researcher (2006-onwards). Currently, he is a member of the f-Element Chemistry Group of C2TN at IST, where ITN was integrated in 2012. He will be joining Centro de Química Estrutural (CQE) of IST in 2019. He initiated in 1991 a new line of research in gas-phase chemistry of lanthanides and actinides (using mass spectrometry techniques) that remains as his main research interest. Additional research interests are in the field of coordination and organometallic chemistry of the f-elements.