on 11-11-2020
I returned to Cape-Verde in 2014, where I am currently a Professor in the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of the University of Cape-Verde. (see more)
In November of 1996, as many of my countrymen, I moved from Cape-Verde to Portugal. I settled in Coimbra to study Electrotechnical Engineering at the Faculdade de Ciência e Tecnologia of the University of Coimbra. In 2000 I joined IT in Coimbra, through Professor Vìtor Silva who accepted my request to be my graduation project advisor. In 2001, I was invited to participate in another IT project, coordinated by Professors Luís de Sá and Fernando Perdigão.
At the same time, I pursued my post-graduate studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering, under the guidance of Professor Fernando Perdigão. In 2003, after the conclusion of the research project and the curricular part of my Master, I went to Lisbon to work on the adaptation of a CTT solution to the Cape-Verde Post Office and, in August 2004, I returned to Cape-Verde to implement this project.
In 2006, I returned to IT to participate in project TECNOVOZ (robust command recognition system). I took the opportunity to finish my Masters degree and start my PhD. During this period, I collaborated in several projects (TICE.Healthy, HE[eee]SIT[u]AÇÃO, LETSREAD) and we published several resources for the Portuguese language.
I returned once again to Cape-Verde in 2014 where I am currently a Professor in the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of the University of Cape-Verde and I collaborate with the Cape-Verde Red Cross in the informatization process of the social games in Cape-Verde.
I have much to thank IT for the opportunities and knowledge I gained. The accumulated experience of more than 12 years at IT, integrated in the academic environment, gave me skills in research and exposition of ideas that allow me to practice teaching with firmness and authority. IT also provided me with social skills, multiculturalism and a range of new family members. I gave a lot to IT and received a lot from it. Thank you.
on 09-08-2020
In 2017, I joined the University of Madeira as an Invited Assistant Professor where I’m currently teaching programming, IoT and networking courses. (see more)
My first research experience and therefore contact with IT was in 2010 during my MSc in Computer Engineering at ISCTE University Institute of Lisbon where I managed to publish several articles in the fields of Serious Gaming and Machine Learning. I pursued the topic of Machine Learning and submitted my master thesis with the title of Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning: Learning Sub-goals and State-abstraction. After obtaining my MSc degree, I was hired to the position of Invited Assistant Professor at ISCTE University Institute of Lisbon where I taught Introduction to Programming and Object-Oriented Programming courses over a time period of two years.
By the end of 2010 I started working at Microsoft Portugal as a Software Development Engineer and was responsible for developing Facebook applications (client-side) for crowdsourcing and data-speech collection, and was also part of an engineering team responsible for creating a web portal for accessing, debugging, processing and labeling live logs related with speech end-user experiences in Microsoft products. In 2013 my manager probed my interest to pursue a PhD Studentship in Industry at Microsoft developing machine learning techniques for recognizing and predicting human activities from RGB-D data using Kinect. Since the topic was fully aligned with my research interests, I accepted the challenge and managed to complete my Phd in Computer Science with an specialization in Machine Learning and Human Activity Recognition, always with a connection to IT.
Shortly after submitting my Phd dissertation in 2017 I embraced a new professional challenge and joined Axians from Vinci Energies as a Lead Data Scientist and until today I am managing a team developing multiple projects related to Machine Learning and Computer Vision. The projects range from developing a data analytics platform for managing car-parking facilities. Developing and applying machine learning techniques for image segmentation and classification of corrosion in metal structures. Implementing techniques for human detection and tracking in thermal and RGB-D images.
Also, in 2017, I joined the University of Madeira as an Invited Assistant Professor where I’m currently teaching programming, IoT and networking courses. In hindsight, the decision to pursue and obtain a PhD changed the way that I approach challenges in my professional and personal life, imbuing me with tools that will help me to overcome those challenges in years to come. It has also opened doors to opportunities that otherwise would not be presented.