Expert in Advanced Structural Health Monitoring and Characterization, based on vision-based approaches, applying deep and machine learning for computer vision, and including processing hyper and multispectral images. 

He is currently a researcher at CERIS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, and an Associate Professor at Universidade Lusófona. Jónatas Valença is or has been involved in various scientific societies, playing an active role in working groups within the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib). 

He is (was) principal investigator or member in projects funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), ANI (former Adi), both Portuguese governmental institutions, and directly funded by the industry. As technical consultant, he has participated in dozens of specialized consulting studies, with emphasis on monitoring of bridges load tests and mechanical/structural characterization and diagnosis of structures pathology. Furthermore, he was Founder Partner of SBE – Science-Based Engineering (2012-2013), spin-off of the Instituto Pedro Nunes in Coimbra, where he was the Head of the Assessment and Monitoring of Structures sector.