José Pedro Morgado is Assistant Professor at Universidade Lusófona de Lisboa and Auxiliary Researcher at CIDEFES – Centro de Investigação em Desporto, Educação Física, Exercício e Saúde (Universidade Lusófona). He specialises in exercise physiology and biochemistry, studying how acute and chronic exercise affect immune function, fatigue and performance in athletes and exercisers, with emphasis on training-load monitoring, heart rate variability, overtraining, nutrition and bioimpedance-derived indicators such as phase angle, mainly in swimming.

For more than 20 years he has combined academic work with professional practice as a swimming coach and physical education teacher, working with children, adolescents, adults, older adults and people with special educational needs, in schools, clubs, health clubs and prison settings. As a coach at Sport Lisboa e Benfica and Sport Algés e Dafundo, he guided swimmers from learn-to-swim to elite level, contributing to national titles, records and selections for European and World Championships, and preparing an athlete who qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

He has more than 10 years of higher-education teaching experience, at Universidade Lusófona (since 2021), Universidade Europeia (2020–2021), Instituto Superior de Ciências Educativas (2016–2020) and Instituto Piaget (2015–2018), across undergraduate to doctoral levels, teaching Exercise Physiology, Biochemistry, Motor Learning, Training Methodology and Swimming. He has supervised bachelor's, master's and doctoral research, developed curricula and pedagogical materials, and implemented blended-learning approaches aligned with recognised coach-education pathways.

His work on the immune response to exercise in swimmers — including changes in leukocyte subsets and inflammatory markers after acute and chronic training — has been internationally recognised, receiving the Experts' Choice: 2018's Most Exciting Research in the Field of Pediatric Exercise Science award. He has also developed applied monitoring tools for training and performance in swimming (critical velocity testing, heart rate variability, phase angle) and, more recently, extended his research to the biomechanical and physiological determinants of cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality and rescuer fatigue (REANIMA project), fatigue in Portuguese Air Force air operations, and mental health promotion in higher education. He was Principal Investigator of the Erasmus+ Sport projects ACTIVUS (dual careers for athletes) and ISC – Beyond Handicaps (inclusive swimming competitions), both completed in 2025, and was awarded a doctoral scholarship by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (2009–2013). From September 2026, he will lead, as Principal Investigator, the project NADAR JUNTOS – Programa de Competições Inclusivas de Natação (PCINa), funded by the Comité Paralímpico de Portugal, which will design, implement and validate a national inclusive swimming competition programme for children aged 8–16, with and without physical disabilities, building on the European model Inclusive Swimming Competition – Beyond Handicaps (Erasmus+ Sport 101134075).

He is a member of the European College of Sport Science and regularly presents his work at its Annual Congress, as well as at national events such as the Technical and Scientific Congress of the Portuguese Association of Swimming Technicians, where he received a distinction in 2025. He has organised scientific events including the International Conference on Sports and Education (ICSE 2025), CIDEFES Day and CIDEFES Mini-Day, and contributes to public science communication, including the podcast Movimento Informado pela Ciência (MIC).

José Pedro Morgado's research addresses exercise physiology and immunology, focusing on how acute and chronic training affect immune function, fatigue and performance in athletes, particularly swimmers. His main lines of research include: exercise immunology and immune-cell responses to training; heart rate variability and overtraining; training-load monitoring, including critical velocity testing; bioimpedance-derived indicators (phase angle) as markers of adaptation and fatigue; and sports nutrition in high-performance athletes. More recently, he has extended this expertise to the biomechanical and physiological determinants of cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality and rescuer fatigue, fatigue in military air operations, and inclusive sport and dual-career support for young athletes — including, from September 2026, the national scale-up of an inclusive swimming competition programme (NADAR JUNTOS/PCINa, funded by the Comité Paralímpico de Portugal).
He has published 10 articles in journals and 2 book chapters, organised 4 scientific events, and received 2 distinctions, including the Experts' Choice: 2018's Most Exciting Research in the Field of Pediatric Exercise Science award. He works in the area(s) of Medical and Health Sciences, with emphasis on Sport and Fitness Sciences, and Social Sciences, with emphasis on Sociology and Social Topics. The most frequent terms in his scientific output include: cellular immunity; swimmers; training session; training season; upper respiratory symptoms; heart rate variability; phase angle; exercise immunology; dual careers; inclusion through sports; adapted physical activity.