Roberto Souza obtained his Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 1999. He has experience in materials science and engineering, with emphasis on tribology and mechanical properties of materials. His main interests are wear, friction, lubrication, finite element modeling, thin films, residual stresses, and contact stresses. He joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo in 2001, and since 2017 he has co-coordinated the Laboratório de Fenômenos de Superfície.