Mendes Corrêa, as he was known, was born on Rua do Alameda in downtown Porto, on 4 April 1888, to physician Antonio Maria Esteves Correia Mendes and his wife, Etelvina Marques Mendes Correia. The family was middle class, supported by his father's clinical work. In fact, his father reached a certain social prominence in the city, through his friendship with Oliveira Martins and Luciano de Castro, holding the positions of city councillor, board member of the House of Mercy and secretary of the Commercial Geography Society of Porto.

After completing primary and secondary school in his hometown, Mendes Corrêa followed in his father’s footsteps and enrolled in the pre-Medicine programme at the Polytechnic Academy of Porto (1904-1906), and then the Medical-Surgical School of Porto. There he stood out as a student of merit with a few publications and conferences, and he completed the programme with excellent marks in 1911. The scientific and technical-oriented curriculum and methodological practices at both schools, with a strong emphasis on applied science, were not unrelated to the impact of positivism on his thinking. In his final dissertation, The Genius and Talent of Pathology, he presented a scientific and clinical study of the nature of the insane under the emerging anthropological point of view.

Mendes Corrêa was not drawn to a clinical practice, given with the possibility of scientific research in Psychiatry and Criminal Anthropology, an interest that was reinforced during his time as a medical anthropologist at the Porto Tutoria Central da Infância (an agency of the Ministry of Justice that dealt with criminal and civil cases involving minors). He accepted an invitation to begin a career as an academic at the newly created Faculty of Science of the University of Porto, a professional relationship that would last for many years, in the following positions: Second Interim Assistant Professor (1911), First Interim Assistant Professor (1912) Second Permanent Assistant Professor (1913), Full Professor and Secretary (1921) and its director (1929 and 1932).

During the short-lived existence of First Faculty of Arts of Porto he began also lecturing as a contract professor in the Geographical Sciences department (1919), and later as full professor (1921). Additionally, he served as chair of Archaeology, Ethnology, Anthropology and Geography and Ethnography. The institution granted him the highest degree of Doctor of Historical and Natural Sciences in (1922) and Geographical Sciences (1925).

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