News: In the Media

In an interview with Jornal de Negócios,  the United States Ambassador to Portugal, Randi Charno Levine, addresses Portugal’s decision, under the former Prime Minister, to exclude high-risk 5G suppliers like Huawei from the country and the controversy that targeted American universities and the International Partnerships with Portugal – Austin Texas, Carnegie Mellon and MIT – stating that she believes that it is now “behind us”.

The news that Elvira Fortunato, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education in the outgoing government, was aiming to terminate the protocols with those entities sparked the controversy. However, António Costa’s government ultimately decided to extend the agreement for another year, deferring negotiations to the succeeding government.

“I sincerely hope and believe that it was just a one-off. These are solid relationships and programs that have been in existence for 20 years,” says Randi Charno Levine in her interview with Jornal de Negócios.

“We recognize that Portugal is a leader in the digital transition. We recognize that it is a leader in the energy transition. We recognize that Portugal has increased the number of patent applications threefold in the last ten years. So, there are great things happening here in Portugal,” says the Ambassador.

The Ambassador also emphasized the positive impact of American universities’ investments in Portugal, citing successful ventures like Feedzai and Unbabel “American universities are very proud of the investment they have made in Portugal with Portuguese researchers”.

Moving forward, the American Ambassador expressed her commitment to meeting with the new government to present the success of these partnerships through compelling data reaffirming the importance and benefits of collaboration between the United States and Portugal: “all the wonderful information and statistics about how successful this has been for Portugal”, hoping “that information will speak for itself”.  

Mahmoud Tavakoli, Director of the “Soft and Printed Microelectronics Laboratory” (SPM) from the Faculty of Science and Technology of Universidade de Coimbra (FCTUC), featured in a  recent Nature article “Where I Work”.

 In the piece “How I make stretchy electronics for medicine”,  Tavakoli offers an overview of the work being developed at the SPM Lab focusing on the development of a new generation of wearable electronic devices that mimic the flexibility of the  human skin, with potential applications  in different sectors, namely healthcare. 

“We are working on a soft electronic device that can monitor internal organs. Standard electronic devices are rigid and invasive. But a soft, miniature robot might be able to move inside the gut to film, register data or deliver drugs without harming tissue”, explained the researcher to Nature.

Image Credits: Ana Paganini for Nature

Mahmoud Tavakoli manages a multi-disciplinary research team of Electrical, Chemical, Biomedical and Mechanical Engineers that combines expertise in nanomaterials, polymers, and liquid conductors to drive  applications in soft robotics, soft electronics, smart textile, smart plastics, and health monitoring. 

“We’re a team of 15 researchers in different fields such as electronic, chemical or mechanical engineering and physics. We even have a digital artist. My job is to glue all this expertise into one unit.”, shared Mahmoud.

Tavakoli’s research work has received substantial support by the CMU Portugal Program and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT). Through the Program, the FCTUC team has collaborated with the Soft Machines Lab from Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering on several impactful projects: Stretchtonics, one of CMU Portugal Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives; WoW, one of our Large Scale Collaborative Projects which is led by Glintt; and the Exploratory research project Exoskins. At the moment, the team oversees the supervision of CMU Portugal Dual Degree Ph.D. students supervised by Mahmoud Tavakoli: Manuel Carneiro and Marta Freitas.

The research developed under these collaborative projects, with the support of teams at Carnegie Mellon and CMU Portugal students, has contributed to significant advancements in stretchable electronics, wearable computing, wearable patient monitoring, digital health, and digital biomarkers.

To read the full story, visit Nature here. ⁠

Feedzai was featured in an article published in Jornal de Negócios with an interview with its CEO and co-founder Nuno Sebastião. As the first spin-off launched under the scope of the CMU Portugal Program, Feedzai brings together a unique blend of expertise in engineering, simulations, real-time big data processing, and high-scale distributed systems.

The article presents an overview of theFeedzai’s journey as a Unicorn company, which originated in Coimbra in 2008 and is now establishing its presence in key global hubs, including Lisbon, Porto, San Mateo, Atlanta, New York, London, Sydney, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Bogotá. Nuno Sebastião, CEO at Feedzai and one of its three founders, starts the interview by saying that “there is a thin line between a visionary and a madman”, asserting that results are what defines the right side of the line.

With a background in engineering at the European Space Agency and an MBA from the London Business School, Nuno Sebastião co-founded the company with two other visionaries: Pedro Bizarro (Chief Science Officer), ormer professor at the University of Coimbra and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Paulo Marques, the Company Chief Technology Officer for 13 years until May 2022. aulo Marques, who continues to contribute as one of CMU Portugal’s Scientific Directors, played a pivotal role in the company’s early years.

All three are still strong supporters of the CMU Portugal partnership. Feedzai actively participates in the Program, most notably as a Large-Scale Project Promoter under Project Camelot and as a dedicated Affiliated Partner, reflecting its ongoing commitment to fostering collaboration and innovation.

More about Feedzai and CMU Portugal here.

CMU Portugal Exploratory Research project PROMETHEUS was featured in the online and printed edition of Exame Informática, a Portuguese Magazine on the latest technology advancements. The project was also highlighted on the TV show Exame Informática, transmitted in the Portuguese TV Channel SIC Notícias.

The project, led by Alexandre Ferreira da Silva at Universidade do Minho in collaboration with Instituto Superior Técnico (NanosatLab) and Carnegie Mellon University, is developing 5cm cubic satellites to provide easy access to space for the research and education community. According to the project PI, Alexandre Ferreira da Silva from Universidade do Minho, “These small cube-shaped satellites measuring 5 cm, called PocketQubes, are made with simple and low-cost materials, making it an accessible tool for teaching and research.”

Paulo Fisch, a Carnegie Mellon University researcher currently working under the project, was in Portugal in July to support the development of these mini satellites that are designed to be used in the classroom, from high school to college, but are also prepared to go into space. 

Even if they are only 5cm large, they have all the necessary elements to function effectively: a camera (from a mobile phone), an orientation sensor, actuators to position it in space after launch, a solar battery and a radio communication system. It also has antennas, made with measuring tape, attached to the base with fishing line that will be attached to the base, inside the rocket. 

According to Paulo “Given the simplicity of the entire process, it is easier to assemble and disassemble than many Lego toys that are offered to children,” so researchers predict that they will probably be possible to use in the classroom from high school onwards. The total cost does not exceed 500 euros and all plans are available for consultation on the open-source platform GitHub. 

Being affordable is one of the real advantages since “access to space is usually expensive and restricted to government agencies and big companies”, explains Rodrigo Ventura from Técnico adding “Currently with New Space, small and medium-sized companies already have access to space. With this project we want to expand it even more and have satellites in orbit built by students”. 

Paulo Fisch’s visit to Portugal started in Universidade do Minho where the satellites were first assembled with the support of Pedro Andrade, Ph.D. student at UMinho. They then visited Técnico’s Taguspark Campus, where the evaluation of the satellites communication system took place. 

In addition to the models intended exclusively for teaching, the team is also building a PocketQube destined to fly and be launched in low earth orbit (LEO), 400 kilometers from altitude. Certification to fly requires vibration tests and the so-called bake out in which the satellite is placed inside an oven at 80 degrees to release gasses on Earth and not in the void of space. The launch should take place aboard Space X, in a process handled by the company Spanish Fossa, with an estimated cost of twenty thousand euros. 

Alexandre Ferreira da Silva expects to start testing the use of the small satellite in the 2024/25 academic year at UMinho. 

Full article (in Portuguese)
Video Exame Informática

The 2023 CMU Portugal Call for Affiliated Ph.D. Scholarships was featured in Jornal Económico Newspaper. The article presented an overview of the Affiliated Ph.D. Programs initiative through the perspective of CMU Portugal National Director, Inês Lynce and of two Affiliated Ph.D. candidates, Diogo Silva (FCT NOVA ) and Maria Eduarda Andrada (Universidade de Coimbra).

Diogo Silva shared that he was halfway through his Master’s thesis in Computer Engineering at FCT NOVA when he decided to apply to the Program: “I wanted the opportunity to have access to Carnegie Mellon University Professors and researchers, which is considered one of the best universities in the world for informatics and in particular in artificial intelligence applied to language, which is my research area”, explains the 24-year-old student. Under his Ph.D., Diogo expects to improve language generation approaches and help to break the human-machine gap in conversational agents. Encouraged by his supervisor at FCT NOVA, João Magalhães, a CMU Portugal supervisor and researcher, he pointed out “my scholarship allowed me to conduct research that otherwise would not be possible and has helped me to become more independent. The CMU Portugal Program opened new doors for me and facilitated the creation of new connections within my field of investigation”.

Diogo also has the opportunity to work in collaboration with the Portuguese Unicorn Company Farfetch under CMU Portugal’s large Scale project IFetch. Many of the selected students have the chance to cooperate with industry during their doctoral, which is, according to CMU Portugal National Co-Director Inês Lynce “one of the big advantages of these Ph.D. Programs”. “This initiative promotes a close connection between students and Portuguese ICT Companies. Even in the selection process we value candidates who present a work plan in collaboration with a company”, explains Inês. 

Launched for the first time in 2021, the Affiliated Ph.D. Programs was created “to increase the number of scholarships and diversify CMU Portugal’s educational offer.  Every student eligible for a Ph.D. in ICT-related areas from a Portuguese University can apply to these scholarships”, explained the Program’s Co-Director to Jornal Económico.

Maria Eduarda, an Affiliated Ph.D. candidate from Brazil in Electrical and Computer Engineering hosted at Universidade de Coimbra, shared her experience and reasons for choosing this Program “I applied because I believed that the partnership between a national university and one from the United States would provide me acomplete training in terms of soft skills and technical knowledge”. According to Maria “this Ph.D. already gave me a broad range of opportunities to connect with qualified professionals in my area of ​​expertise, which I would not have had if only enrolled at the University of Coimbra.”

Link to the News article and pdf. 

The 2023 Call for 12 Affiliated Ph.D. Scholarships is open until March 31. 

More information here.