Irenilza de Alencar Nääs has an engineering degree from the State University of Campinas, she has an MSc degree in Agriculture from Cal Poly State University, and a doctoral degree in Agricultural Engineering from Michigan State University 1980. She is now a full professor at Paulista University, where she is researching food production networks. She is also a professor emeritus at the State University of Campinas. She was professor emeritus at the Federal University of Grande Dourados in Brazil, and Florida State University, USA. She has been working with the environment and intensively housed animals under tropical conditions since the '80s; she leads projects on future scenarios for animal production under global warming. She has several scientific articles published. She has advised several doctoral and master's students for the last 40 years. She is a member of the Academy of Science at São Paulo State. She was president of the Brazilian Society of Agricultural Engineering, the Latin American and Caribbean Association of Agricultural Engineering, and the International Commission of Agricultural Engineering with a mandate from 2006 to 2008. She was president of the Brazilian Poultry Science Foundation, a WPSA branch, from 2014 to 2020. She is a member of academies and associations in Brazil and abroad. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and has received awards from Brazilian associations and abroad.