Dr. Delfina Soares is the Director (D1) of the United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV) since 2015.
She has strong ties to UNU-EGOV's host university, the University of Minho, where she has held various positions as a lecturer and researcher over the last two decades at the Department of Information Systems and at the ALGORITMI Research Center.
Delfina coordinated more than 25 digital governance research, development, consultancy and advisory projects at the national and international levels and numerous bilateral partnerships with the governments of multiple countries, including those of Cape Verde, Colombia, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, and Uganda, and as well as with international organisations, such as UNDESA, UNDP, UNECA, UNESCO, and World Bank.
Over her career, Delfina has published more than 50 journal articles, indexed papers in international conferences, and supervised three post-doc researchers, 8 Ph.D. theses, and more than 30 MSc dissertations in the areas of information systems and digital governance.
She participated as an invited speaker in more than 50 talks, seminars, and panels on the theme of Digital Governance and Information Systems.
Delfina has been a member of the organisational, programme, and scientific committees of more than 42 conferences, tracks and workshops; has integrated multiple Working Groups, Expert Panels and Advisory Boards; and has served in several academic and scientific examinations, selection, and awards committees. Delfina is the coordinator of the International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV) conference series.
Delfina is a member of the Executive Committee of the Observatory for the Study and Development of the Information Society (GÁVEA), and a board member of the Portuguese Chapter of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and the Executive Committee of the Portuguese Association for Information Systems (APSI). She is also a member of the WG 8.5 (Working Group on Information Systems in Public Administration), part of the TC 8 (Technical Committee on Information Systems) under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).
Delfina holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems and Technology (2010), an MSc in Informatics (Management Information Systems), and a BA in Systems and Informatics Engineering, all granted by the University of Minho, Portugal, in 2010, 1999 and 1994, respectively.