CMU Portugal Visiting Researchers won Amazon Research Award

Alexandra Mendes (Assistant Professor at FEUP and researcher at INESC TEC) and João F. Ferreira (Associate Professor at Técnico and researcher at INESC ID), two former participants of the CMU Portugal “Visiting Faculty & Researchers” initiative, are among the winners of the Fall 2024 edition of the Amazon Research Awards.

The highly competitive award has distinguished 70 honorees from 44 universities across 10 countries, chosen by Amazon scientists for their excellent research proposals, based on scientific quality and potential societal impact.

Current and past recipients include researchers from leading institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. For the first time, Portuguese researchers based in Portugal have received this distinguished award, placing their institutions, INESC ID and the University of Porto, alongside these global academic leaders.

In the 2024 Fall cycle, awards were granted across five distinct calls for proposals: AI for Information Security, Automated Reasoning, AWS AI, AWS Cryptography, and Sustainability.

Alexandra Mendes, a participant in the 2023 edition of the Visiting Faculty & Researchers program, received an award in the Automated Reasoning area, for her proposal “Overcoming Barriers to the Adoption of Verification-Aware Languages”. Alexandra will focus on identifying and addressing barriers to the adoption of verification-aware programming languages, in particular Dafny. In addition to the funding support provided by this award, the collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) will help bridge research and industry needs, ensuring practical impact of this work.

João F. Ferreira, a participant in the 2024 edition of the Visiting Faculty & Researcher program, was awarded in the same area, with the proposal “Polyglot Automated Program Repair for Infrastructure as Code”. Building on recent advances by João and his team, the proposal seeks to extend and generalize automated repair techniques for Infrastructure as Code. The funding provided by this award will help accelerate the development of practical tools that enable organizations to maintain more secure, resilient, and maintainable IT infrastructure.

Winners receive a cash prize and access to over 700 Amazon public datasets, Amazon Web AI and Machine Learning services, an Amazon research contact for consultation, and opportunities to engage in Amazon events and training. 

More information about the Amazon Research awards here.

José Fonseca de Moura: The vision behind a transatlantic transformation

In December 2005, José Fonseca de Moura received an email that would end up changing the future of higher education and innovation in Portugal. The sender was Manuel Heitor, then Secretary of State for Science and Innovation under Minister Mariano Gago. The message was simple but urgent: a meeting was to be held at the Palácio das Laranjeiras to discuss launching new academic programs in partnership with American universities. The timing was critical. The Bologna Process had just been implemented, enabling automatic recognition of academic degrees across Europe. There was growing concern that Portuguese students might seek degrees abroad in large numbers, triggering a potential exodus.

The solution? Make Portuguese universities more attractive, dynamic, and internationally relevant. And, from the very beginning, one area stood out: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

Challenge accepted! Fonseca de Moura, an electrical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and a former student of Técnico with a Sc.D. from MIT, rolled ups his sleeves. His first step was to bring a handful of CMU professors to visit Portuguese universities. “Of 2006, I brought half a dozen CMU faculty members to several Portuguese institutions,” he recalls. These exploratory visits laid the groundwork for what would become one of the most innovative and enduring international academic partnerships ever developed by Portugal: the CMU Portugal Program.

The program was built on two pillars: industry-oriented training and cutting-edge doctoral education and research. But from the outset, Fonseca de Moura was clear with his American colleagues: “Portuguese faculty are just as good as CMU professors. The key is to create the conditions for them to deliver education and research at the same impact level.”

Dual degrees, shared standards

To ensure equal commitment and shared ownership, Fonseca de Moura proposed a bold model: a dual-degree program in which both CMU and a Portuguese university would confer degrees. Students would receive diplomas from both institutions without duplicating coursework—an approach that required deep trust and coordination. “The clearest example is the thesis,” he explains. “It’s a single document, co-supervised by faculty from both sides, validated by both.”

Convincing CMU wasn’t easy. “My colleagues initially thought it was impossible,” he recalls. But Fonseca de Moura had a broader vision: “This was a transformative program. For it to work, faculty on both sides had to be equally engaged.” He approached the Dean directly. The key, he argued, was maintaining quality: “Students should never be seen as second-tier. The program’s strength would lie in its invisibility—no one should be able to tell which student came from which side.” Today, that’s exactly the case. Students are integrated seamlessly; only advisors know their paths.

Each semester, the students like all other students, undergo rigorous evaluation—fondly referred to as “Black Friday”—based solely on merit and academic work. The verdict has been consistent: no differences in performance. CMU Portugal students are simply CMU students, indistinguishable from their peers.

With its roots in ICT, the program expanded across eight Portuguese universities (Universidade de Lisboa, Universidade Nova, Universidade Católica, Universidade do Minho, Universidade de Aveiro, Universidade do Porto, Universidade de Coimbra and Universidade da Madeira). Each institution contributes specific departments and expertise, creating a national network of excellence.

Industry partners with vision

Right from the start, industry involvement was central. Portugal Telecom, Novabase, and Siemens became foundational partners. “They had vision,” says Fonseca de Moura. “At PT alone, we trained 60 employees in these areas over five years.” This was at a time when topics like cybersecurity were barely mentioned in mainstream discussions—yet already embedded in the program.

However, skepticism abounded. “Some in academia worried that working with industry would compromise academic quality. Some companies believed universities could only produce papers, not real-world impact.” The CMU Portugal Program proved both wrong. Its structure—two years at CMU, three in Portugal—ensured the same recruitment standards and research depth as other CMU students and programs.

Startups and innovation

Nearly two decades have passed since the program’s inception, and Fonseca de Moura is often asked: why does it still matter?

“Every five years, the program is re-evaluated by new teams from the Ministry of Science. And every time, it has shown that it evolves with the times,” he explains. From phase one to phase two, a surprising development emerged: startups. While the original goal was to train professionals for industry, something unexpected happened. Portuguese students and faculty returned from CMU with a new mindset—a startup mindset.

“They saw how things were done at CMU and thought: we can do this too.” The result? Companies like Feedzai, Mambu, Veniam, and Unbabel—all founded by alumni and faculty involved in the program. A dozen such ventures appeared, small at first, uncertain of their growth. But between phases two and three, they had scaled, proving the program’s broader impact: not just in education, but in entrepreneurial culture.

An existential moment for universities

The current transition from phase three to phase four comes at a unique historical juncture. “We are in the midst of a technological shift no one could have predicted,” says Fonseca de Moura. Robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence—these are no longer niche areas. They are reshaping industries and redefining global competition. “This is an existential moment. Either Portuguese universities commit to these fields or risk being left behind.”

For Fonseca de Moura, the opportunity is both urgent and promising. With CMU as a partner, Portugal gains privileged access to world-leading expertise, top-tier research infrastructure, and global corporate connections. “This phase is almost like returning to the beginning,” he reflects. “But this time, it’s not just about internationalizing—it’s about ensuring our universities leap forward and anchor themselves in the technologies that will define the next decades.”

He sees the next five years as a pivotal period of technological and generational renewal. “A large portion of the academic staff will retire. It’s vital that the new generation is deeply rooted in these emerging technologies.” He also points to key priority areas for the future: AI, cybersecurity, climate, sustainability, biomedicine, and the social impact of technology—from misinformation to algorithmic control.

“The pace of change is so fast, universities cannot do it alone. Collaboration is not just useful—it’s essential!”

“How CMU Portugal prime startups” by CMU

The College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon published in the Fall Magazine  the news article “How CMU Portugal Primes startups”, highlighting the CMU Portugal Program’s innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives since its launch in 2006.

Throughout the story, José M. F. Moura, CMU Portugal Director at CMU since the Program’s inception,  shares the efforts made throughout the Program’s  second phase to foster entrepreneurship and innovation (2012–2017), highlighting the creation of successful startups such as Feedzai, Mambu, Veniam (later was acquired by Nexar), and Unbabel. The article also features CMU Portugal’s early-stage accelerator program InRes, and the Large-Scale Collaborative Projects initiative implemented during CMU Portugal’s 3rd phase.

Read the full story here to learn more. 

CMU Portugal students win Best Paper Award at international workshop

A paper co-authored by CMU Portugal Dual Ph.D. students in Software Engineering, Catarina Gamboa, Cláudia Mamede, Daniel Ramos, and Paulo Canelas, received the Best Paper Award at the 2nd International Workshop on Large Language Models for Code (LLM4Code). The paper was also co-authored by Kush Jain, PhD student at CMU and CMU Portugal faculty member Claire Le Goues, who supervises the research work of Cláudia Mamede and Daniel Ramos. The workshop, co-located with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2025), took place on May 3rd in Ottawa, Canada.

The winning paper, “Are Large Language Models memorizing bug benchmarks?” evaluates popular Large Language Models for data leakage susceptibility. Older and smaller models show significant evidence of memorization in widely used benchmarks, while recent models, which are trained on larger datasets, exhibit limited signs of leakage. These findings emphasize the need for careful benchmark selection and robust metrics to accurately assess model capabilities.

Cláudia Mamede presented the paper at the Workshop, stating that she had a great time at ICSE: “We got a lot of thoughtful questions and had great follow-up conversations with people interested in LLMs, software engineering… and bugs! 🐞”

 

CMU Portugal 2025 Mobility Initiatives: Visiting Faculty & Researchers and Students

The Calls for CMU Portugal Mobility Initiatives – Visiting Faculty & Researchers and Visiting Students – will be open between May 30th and June 17th, 2025

Launched under the scope of the CMU Portugal Program, with the support of Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), both initiatives will support visits to Carnegie Mellon University  (CMU) in Pittsburgh, to be completed by December 31st, 2025. 

Visiting Faculty & Researchers Program 

The CMU Portugal Visiting Faculty & Researchers Program will support up to 5 grantees to spend between 2 weeks and 2 months collaborating in research, education, and innovation in ICT with peers at Carnegie Mellon University to experience its culture and best practices. Candidates must be Portuguese citizens or foreign citizens with permanent residence in Portugal who hold a doctoral degree by the time of the application and are affiliated with a Portuguese Higher Education Institution or a Research lab. 

The Visiting Faculty and Researchers Initiative builds on the success of the Faculty Exchange Program, launched in 2007. Up until 2024, CMU Portugal has supported 96 visits to CMU. 

More information about this initiative at: Visiting Faculty & Researchers.

Visiting Students Program 

The CMU Portugal Visiting Students Program will support up to 7 master’s students or masters who have been awarded a degree in the last 5 years in Portugal and in ICT-related areas to spend between 2 weeks and 2 months working in research in ICT at CMU. While at CMU, candidates will be mentored by leading faculty and researchers and have the opportunity to be immersed in Carnegie Mellon’s culture. Visiting Students must be Portuguese citizens or foreign citizens with permanent residence in Portugal.

The Visiting Students Initiative builds on the success of the Undergraduate Internship Program, initiated in 2014, and has already hosted 69 student visits to CMU.

More information is available at: Visiting Students.

On June 4th (3 pm Lisbon  / 10 am Pittsburgh) the CMU Portugal Coordination Office will hold an Online Info Session to clarify all doubts about these calls for applications.

To apply, visit the Admissions and Scholarships page.

If you have further questions about these initiatives, please get in touch with us at apply@cmuportugal.org

Call for CMU Portugal Affiliated Ph.D. Programs: up to 12 Ph.D. scholarships to study in Portugal and CMU

The fifth edition of the CMU Portugal Affiliated Ph.D. Programs, funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), will accept applications from May 12th to June 15th, 2025, to offer up to 12 Ph.D. Scholarships for the 2025/2026 academic year.

The selected candidates will be hosted by a Portuguese University and benefit from a research period at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh of up to 12 months

These 12 Ph.D. scholarships are available in selected cutting-edge areas of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in any Portuguese University and in the following CMU Portugal-related areas, which include three new areas this year:

  • Biomedical Engineering (new)
  • Computational Cognitive Neuroscience (new)
  • Computer Science
  • Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Engineering and Public Policy
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Language Technologies
  • Machine Learning
  • Materials Science and Engineering (new)
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Robotics
  • Societal Computing
  • Software Engineering

The Ph.D. scholarships are available on a competitive basis and will fully support the tuition fees plus provide a monthly stipend for up to 4 years, including financial support during up to a 12-month research period at CMU. After the Ph.D. conclusion, candidates will be awarded a degree granted by the Portuguese Host Institution.

The admissions period will run from May 12th at 12:00/noon (Lisbon) to June 15th at 12:00/noon (Lisbon). To apply, please visit the Admissions and Scholarships.

On May 22nd (10 am Pittsburgh / 3 pm Portugal) the CMU Portugal Coordination Office will hold an Online Info Session to clarify all doubts about this call for applications.

For more information about the application process, please visit the Affiliated Ph.D. Program page on our website and the FAQs Page.

Eight new exploratory projects selected under the CMU Portugal 2024 Call (provisional results)

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) has announced the provisional results of the Exploratory Projects of the national programs at CMU, MIT and UT Austin.  Eight new CMU Portugal exploratory projects were selected for funding.

The 2024 call for proposals received 40 submissions, 8 of which were recommended for funding under the scope of the CMU Portugal Program by FCT’s independent panel of evaluators. 

 The winning projects will be led by four Portuguese research Institutions: IST-ID with three projects; INESC-ID and Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) both with two; and INESC-TEC with one.

The projects will collaborate with 5 different departments at Carnegie Mellon University: Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, Language Technologies, and Robotics

The projects are planned for 12 months, allowing the scientific community to identify and explore new ideas in a bottom-up way. Overall, CMU Portugal is supporting the Portuguese teams with €397.597,06.

The CMU Portugal Program regularly supports the launch of Exploratory Research Projects (ERPs), with the main objective of promoting Portugal’s international competitiveness and innovation capacity in Science and Technology (S&T) in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Since 2017, the Program has launched five Calls for Exploratory Projects for 35 funded projects.

In 2025, eight (8) new projects were recommended for funding by the FCT under the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, including:

  • Adaptive Query Optimization Architectures to Support Heterogeneous Data Intensive Applications

Principal Investigator in Portugal: José Orlando Roque Nascimento Pereira
Principal Investigator at CMU: Andy Pavlo
Partner Institutions: INESC-TEC; Computer Science Department (CMU)

  • Fully-Homomorphic Encryption from Post-Quantum Code Based Assumptions

Principal Investigator in Portugal: João Miguel Lourenço Ribeiro
Principal Investigator at CMU: Aayush Jain
Partner Institutions: IT; Computer Science Department (CMU)

  • Minimally-invasive deep-brain stimulation for treating treatment-resistant depression

Principal Investigator in Portugal: Patrícia Figueiredo
Principal Investigator at CMU:Pulkit Grover
Partner Institutions:  IST-ID; Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (CMU)

  • Body Motion Foundation Model for Human Activity Analysis

Principal Investigator in Portugal:  José Santos-Victor
Principal Investigator at CMU:Artur Dubrawski
Partner Institutions:  IST-ID; Robotics Institute (CMU)

  • DIME-FS A Decentralized File System

Principal Investigator in Portugal: David Rogério Póvoa de Matos
Principal Investigator at CMU:Seth Goldstein
Partner Institutions: INESC-ID; Computer Science Department (CMU)

  • Exploring Robotlike RObot behavioRs in users’ Mental Models

Principal Investigator in Portugal: Filipa Isabel Nogueira Correia
Principal Investigator at CMU: Nikolas Martelaro
Partner Institutions: IST-ID; Human-Computer Interaction Institute (CMU)

  • Machine Unlearning in Speech Foundation Models: Learning to Forget

Principal Investigator in Portugal: Francisco Saraiva Sepúlveda Teixeira
Principal Investigator at CMU: Bhiksha Raj Ramakrishnan
Partner Institutions: INESC-ID; Language Technologies Institute (CMU)

  • Neuromorphic quantum-inspired computing

Principal Investigator in Portugal: Emmanuel Zambrini Cruzeiro
Principal Investigator at CMU: Elias Towe
Partner Institutions: IT; Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (CMU)

More information on FCT website

Tekever is the newest Portuguese unicorn company

The CMU Portugal Affiliated company Tekever, specialized in AI-driven Autonomous Systems, is joining the list of Portuguese unicorn companies, since it reached a valuation above one billion pounds (1.173 million euros) after a new funding round. The round included continued support from existing investors such as Ventura Capital, Baillie Gifford, the NATO Innovation Fund, Iberis Capital, and Crescent Cove.

After reaching this valuation milestone, Tekever is the seventh Portuguese unicorn, joining CMU Portugal industrial affiliates Talkdesk, Feedzai, OutSystems, and Remote, in addition to Anchorage and Sword Health.

Founded in 2001 by computer engineering students from Instituto Superior Técnico, Tekever started as a software company focused on developing artificial intelligence but has specialized, since 2010, in building surveillance drones, becoming the European’s leading provider of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (also known as drones) and a leader in defence technology (deftech).

The company operates in several European countries, has engineering centers in the UK, Portugal and France, production facilities and operational support teams across Europe, including Ukraine. Its surveillance AR3 drones have been used by Ukrainian troops since the beginning of the war in 2022, supporting land and sea operations.

Tekever announced the launch of a five-year £400 million development program for the UK, known as OVERMATCH, “aimed at transforming the UK’s defence industry and ensuring the UK and its allies remain at the forefront of vital autonomous, AI-driven technology”. 

In the Portuguese media: CNN Portugal, Diário de Notícias, E24, ECO, Expresso, Jornal de Negócios, Jornal Económico, Observador, Sapo 24, Sapo Tek, ZAP

Back to Primary School: Paulo Marques continues joining “Cientista Regressa à Escola” Initiative

The Cientista Regressa à Escola” (Same Hometown Programme) an initiative by Native Scientists, once again featured the participation of a CMU Portugal member. For the 4th time, CMU Portugal Scientific Director Paulo Marques was challenged to return to his roots and visit his former primary school to inspire young students through hands-on science workshops.

Paulo Marques grew up in the countryside, in Valdonas, near Tomar, Portugal, where he attended the public primary school “Escola Básica de Valdonas” between 1981 and 1985. Now, nearly 40 years after finishing primary education, he returned to where his educational journey began — and many memories came back:

“This was really a quite poor region. For you to imagine, a lot of families only had a donkey as a means of transportation and sending their kids to school was a major effort. Many didn’t actually go, and dreaming of studying more was only that – a dream.”

Paulo Marques is a renowned Portuguese entrepreneur, engineer, and investor. He co-founded Feedzai, Portugal’s first unicorn and the first startup launched under the CMU Portugal Program. Paulo served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for 13 years, leading the company’s product and technology strategy, and he continues to serve on its board of directors. More recently, he became one of the founding partners of TUMO, an innovative school for young people aged 12 to 18 that explores the intersection of creativity and technology.

During the “Cientista Regressa à Escola” activities on April 9, Paulo worked on creating and building robots for exploring Mars with over 40 children aged between 6 and 10. The inspiration was the time Paulo worked for the European Space Agency, helping advance space exploration. Paulo wanted to show that children can dream big, even with space, independently of their origins or conditions. The workshop was co-sponsored  by Robothink, a technology school for children that offers a complete and ongoing curriculum in Robotics, Programming, and Artificial Intelligence. 

The overall feedback and participation from the children, and the teachers, during the activities were incredibly positive – probably making it a day they’ll never forget! But the experience was surely memorable not just for the kids, but also for Paulo Marques:

“It’s amazing to show children from a primary school in a small village in central Portugal that through science, they can grow, explore the world, and even the universe — from the tiniest things like atoms, molecules, and cells to the vastest wonders like stars, galaxies, and nebulas.”

 

Click to watch the piece by Sic Notícias (in Portuguese)

‘Cientista Regressa à Escola’ is a science outreach initiative where researchers/scientists return to their primary schools to share their academic and professional experiences with students and inspire them for science. The educational program is implemented by Native Scientists, a non-profit organization connecting underserved children and scientists, that aims to promote scientific culture and literacy to young children, inspiring them to follow a path in science. 

In the last three years (2022-2024), 95 scientists have had the opportunity to return to their primary schools. By the end of 2025, another 100 visits are already planned.

More about the initiative here

Other CMU Portugal participants: Nuno Nunes (former CMU Portugal Director)