José Maria da Silva Lopes was born in Mirandela on 5 September, 1962.

In 1990 he completed a degree in Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto.

In 1990 he was awarded the Montepio Geral Sculpture Prize.
 
In 2002, he defended his MA dissertation on Theories of Art, Claude de Laprade and the Vista Alegre Tumulus at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon.

In 2009, he passed public Doctorate exams at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP) with a thesis entitled Body Design in Eighteenth Century Portugal - The Acts of Design / The Design of Acts.
 
In 2000, he began at FAUP as a visiting lecturer and in 2002, on completing his Master's Degree studies, he became a fully-integrated lecturer.

In 2009 he took up a role as an Assistant Professor.

Since 2008 he has been Director of the Design I Module at FAUP.

Since 2013 he has been a teaching collaborator on the Doctoral Plan in Design (University of Porto in partnership with the University of Porto Science and Technology Park (UPTEC), the Institute of Investigation into Design, Media and Culture (ID+) and the University of Aveiro).

Since 2011 he has been a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Art and Design at FAUP.

He has been a member of the scientific and editorial board for the Atlas & Vocabulary of Design, the Design Research Group (ND) and the Art, Design & Society Research Institute (I2ADS), Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, since 2011.

He is a collaborating member on the research project Architecture, Design and Representation: Design Methodologies in Project Teaching. International Cooperation Agreement between the São Paolo Institute of Architecture and Urbanism and FAUP.