José Mauro Volkmer de Castilho (January 17, 1946 – March 8, 1998) was a Brazilian scientist, teacher, researcher, and professor. He was associated with the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) from 1967, when he entered as a student at the Escola de Engenharia da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. In 1971, he graduated as an electrical engineer, subsequently completing his master's degree in 1973 and his doctorate in 1982, both at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. At UFRGS, where he served as a professor starting in 1972 and as a full professor from 1990, he undertook cutting-edge projects in databases and soon achieved a leadership position among Brazilian researchers in the field.

Castilho began his academic life at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, where he studied engineering. After graduation, in 1971, he went to Rio de Janeiro, where he obtained his master's degree in 1973 and PhD in 1982, both at PUC Rio University. José Mauro died of cancer in 1998; he was married and the father of three children.

His most recent work focused on the different ways in which artificial intelligence could contribute to the improvement of databases, generating Intelligent Databases. He supervised work in active databases, natural language interfaces for databases, cooperative interfaces, information retrieval, knowledge discovery in databases, and integration mechanisms between expert systems and databases, gathering around himself a large group of students and researchers across various topics.

Professor Castilho was an active participant in actions developed in Brazil in the field of science and technology. He was part of the faculty of CPGCC since its founding, participated in the MINIBAN project in cooperation with Germany, and carried out activities with DIGIBRÁS. He was a member of the Computer Science Advisory Committee of CNPq, a consultant for CAPES and FAPERGS, associate coordinator of the Brazil/Germany cooperation in the field of Informatics, and Brazil's representative to the Conselho Latinoamericano de Educação em Informática - CLEI. On an administrative level, he held various positions at UFRGS, such as department head and vice director of the Instituto de Informática of UFRGS, actively participating in numerous collegiate bodies within departments and CPGCC.

In posthumous tribute to his contributions to the Instituto de Informática and the university as a whole, the Unit Council named the auditorium of the Escola de Computação of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul after him, as Auditório Prof. Dr. José Mauro Volkmer de Castilho. In his honor and recognition of his work, the Brazilian Computer Society (Sociedade Brasileira de Computação), of which he was one of the founders, created the Jose Mauro de Castilho Award (Prémio José Mauro Castilho), sponsored since 1998 and awarded annually to the best paper presented at the Simpósio Brasileiro de Banco de Dados as selected by the program committee.

External links include listings on the DBLP Bibliography Server, the ACM Portal, and Computer Science Bibliographies. Further resources encompass the history of the Computer Sciences Institute at UFRGS, the José Mauro Castilho Auditorium, and records from the Brazilian Scientific and Technological Development Committee - Researchers.