Navy Officer is the first Portuguese to lead NATO Military Oceanography panel

Lieutenant Lieutenant Louis Lent of Santos was elected president of the NATO Technical Panel on Military Oceanography (NATO MILOC). This is the main Alliance expert forum, which brings together representatives from all the Allied Nations to support the NATO Military Committee for the areas of physical oceanography and its application in naval operations. Portugal thus assumes for the first time the coordination of this important and only working group, formed in the 1960s, during the “Cold War”. The knowledge of the structure and dynamics of the ocean allows for increased operational efficiency and safety of naval forces, becoming a critical factor in the success of underwater operations, anti-submarine operations, mine warfare and amphibian projection.

This election was the result of a NATO invitation to the Lenten Commander of Santos, which was an international recognition for the work of the Navy military and for the capacity developed by Portugal in this field of knowledge (promoted and implemented by the Hydrographic Institute) and its important contribution to developing it within the Alliance.  

Lieutenant Lieutenant Luís Lent dos Santos joined the Navy in 2001 as an officer of the superior naval technical class, having dedicated his career to studying the dynamics of the ocean and the development of the national military capacity to use this knowledge to support the planning and conduct of naval operations. He holds a Master's degree in Geophysics from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and a PhD in Physical Oceanography from the University of West Brittany (France). Since 2017 he has been the Director of the Geospatial, Meteorological and Oceanographic Center (GEOMETOC) Navy Maritime and since 2021 “Branch Head” at NATO’s new Centre of Excellence in “Maritime GEOMETOC”, NATO MGEOMETOC COE (built in Lisbon).