on 04-04-2022
I am driven by purposeful research with the potential to create a real impact and improve people's lives!
My path at IT started in 2004 while pursuing an MSc, and continued ever since, integrated into a world-renowned multidisciplinary research team with a highly stimulating institutional culture, geared towards technical and scientific excellence. However, as Carlos Salema once referred, IT is also an environment where researchers have “a lot of freedom to do their own choices and to progress their own way provided that they are going in the right direction”, comparable almost to a Jazz orchestra in the sense that “not all the musicians have the music written in front of them”.
Such environment and culture foster remarkable achievements, with clear evidence of how the science made in IT generates effective value for industry and addresses real-world problems at a global level. At the Pattern and Image Analysis group, in which I am integrated, pioneering work is developed in biomedical instrumentation, signal acquisition, and data science, with a special interest in the nascent field of “invisibles” for health.
Representative outputs are the patented technology for biometric recognition based on Electrocardiography (ECG) signals collected with sensors integrated into everyday use objects (already licensed and sub-licensed to industry), or the multi-award-winning BITalino biomedical development platform that has reached tens of thousands of people worldwide over the past 10 years.
The experience thus far leads me to believe that I’m one of the few lucky people that can state to have worked very few days throughout life... not because of lack of a job (fortunately), but because by doing things I love and am passionate about almost every single day, there's no clear boundary between what's work and what's just pure fun. It is safe to say that at IT I have received perhaps one of the greatest gifts… freedom to become a “musician”, without a score, but with far-reaching compositions.
This is shown by the 200+ publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, or by the independent recognition from external institutions including the Olympic Committee of Portugal/Millennium BCP Foundation, the European Commission DG-CONNECT, Ordem dos Engenheiros, or the IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, just to name a few..
Hugo Silva (IT Lisboa)