Paulo M. S. Tavares de Castro obtained a first degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) in 1973, a master's degree from Imperial College London in 1976 and a PhD from Cranfield University in 1980.
He is currently a full professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at FEUP. His research interests are mainly in the field of fatigue, fracture and structural integrity. Through a number of r&d projects funded by the European Union, a substantial part of his research in recent years is related to aeronautics, mainly riveted structures and, more recently, integral structures, particularly those made with FSW.

Professor de Castro has been involved in several national and international scientific and professional associations, such as ASME, where he was a member of the Board on Professional Practice and Ethics, TWI, IOM3, SEFI, Ordem dos Engenheiros, among others.
He is a corresponding member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences and a member of the editorial board of the journals Fatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures, International Journal of Structural Integrity, Mechanika, UPB Scientific Bulletin Series D: Mechanical Engineering, among others. He had sabbaticals as Fulbright Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, and as visiting scholar at Lehigh University, and presented invited lectures at Imperial College London, Lehigh University, Univ. California at Berkeley, Univ. of Maryland and Univs. Federal of Rio de Janeiro, Coimbra, Lille, Napoli, and Salerno, among others. He was professeur invité of the Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, and consultant for Univ. Eduardo Mondlane.

Up to now, his university management activities (always at FEUP) include being director of the degree in Mechanical Engineering (pre Bologna), of the doctoral program in Mechanical Engineering, and of the Department of Mechanical Engineering twice. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Innovation Agency (Agência de Inovação) since the creation of this organization in 1993 until 1996.