Professor José Martins dos Santos served as the inaugural President of CiiEM. Throughout his career, he authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and textbooks on Anatomy. From 2000 onward, he held the position of Chairman of the Board at the Egas Moniz School of Health & Science (EM). Concurrently, he served as the Head of the Anatomy Department and the Morphology Laboratory.

During his extensive academic career, Professor dos Santos supervised numerous MSc and PhD theses. A respected figure in the medical community, he was a member of national and international scientific societies in the fields of Anatomy and Morphology.

He was posthumously awarded the titles of EM's President Emeritus and Head Emeritus of the Morphology Lab (Anatomy).