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The CMU Portugal Academy officially launched its first edition with a bootcamp held on September 13th and 14th at the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI) facilities at Beato Innovation District. The event welcomed the 46 students enrolled in the three Academy’s Advanced Training Programs in digital technologies, who will experience cutting-edge education in: AI, Data Science & Machine Learning; Product Management; and User Experience & Service Design.

During the two-day bootcamp, participants took part in hands-on case studies and collaborative group exercises, interacting with experts from both academia and industry.

Paulo Marques, co-founder of the Portuguese unicorn company Feedzai and founding partner of TUMO Coimbra, introduced the Product Management Course and shared insights from his entrepreneurial journey. His pathway is closely tied to the CMU Portugal program, having been the first faculty member from Universidade de Coimbra to be appointed as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon and the first Director of the master’s in software engineering on the Portuguese side. He currently maintains his affiliation with the program as one of CMU Portugal’s Scientific Directors.

 

The Product Management Course will count on 17 candidates, and is co-led by Oren Zuckerman from the Reichman University and Diogo Rendeiro, Director of Incubation at Usercentrics, having Paulo Marques as faculty member.

The AI, Data Science, and Machine Learning program welcomed 19 enrolled students who will be led by João Magalhães, CMU Portugal faculty member and researcher at the Department of Informatics at FCT NOVA. Magalhães also led one of the program’s large-scale projects, Farfetch Chat R&D, among others.

The AI Course offers introductory knowledge and skills in data science, machine learning, and big data technologies. Participants will gain expertise in data acquisition, preprocessing, machine learning algorithms, and model deployment, applying these tools to address real-world challenges and guide data-driven business decisions.

The User Experience and Service Design will offer to the 10 enrolled students, a comprehensive training in user-centered design, teaching participants to conduct user research, create interactive prototypes, and develop usable interfaces that enhance user satisfaction and business outcomes. 

The course will be co-led by Sandra Gama from Instituto Superior Técnico who also heads the HUMAN Lab from INESC ID, alongside Augusto Esteves, a member of the same research group and an assistant professor at Técnico. 

At the Bootcamp, UX students were also welcomed by two additional CMU Portugal Academy faculty members: Sónia Rafael, Assistant Professor in the area of Communication Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon (FBAUL) and João Ferreira, Software Engineer at Nokia.

The two-day event provided an overview of the key topics to be explored at the new CMU Portugal’s advanced training center in digital technologies launched this year as a collaborative effort between the Interactive Technologies Institute, Instituto Superior Técnico, and the CMU Portugal program, powered by Fundação Santander Portugal. 

The Courses will start in September 2024 and convene through May 2025, consisting of more than 200 contact hours held on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings.

Applications for this year’s edition are now closed. More information available at the CMU Portugal Academy website.

The CMU Portugal Program welcomes seven new Dual Degree Ph.D. candidates for the 2024/2025 academic year. The new Ph.D. students will be funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and will start their journey in September 2024, embarking on a full-time program split between 2 years spent at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and 3 years at a Portuguese university.  

The selection process for these candidates was overseen by a committee composed of faculty members from Portuguese Universities and Carnegie Mellon University, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of 7%.

This year’s scholarship awardees will cover diverse areas of study, specializing in Computer Science (2), Languages Technologies (2) , Engineering and Public Policy (2) and Software Engineering (1) .

In Portugal, the host institutions for these scholars are: Faculty of Engineering – University of Porto (FEUP) (1), Instituto Superior Técnico (4),  NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA) (1) and Universidade do Minho (1) . 

At CMU they will be hosted in four different Departments: Computer Science Department – CMU School of Computer Science (2), Department of Engineering and Public Policy – CMU College of Engineering (2), Language Technologies Institute –  CMU School of Computer Science (2), and at the Software and Societal Systems Department – CMU School of Computer Science.

The group includes students from four different countries: Portugal (4), Austria (1), Iran (1), and the United States (1).

The CMU Portugal Program has enrolled a total of 210 students, and it currently maintains an active community of 85 students (composed of Dual Degree and Affiliated programs) and 91 alums.

Here are all the new students by Ph.D. Program:

Ph.D. Program in Computer Science:

• Rafael Gonçalves (PT) – Instituto Superior Técnico / Computer Science Department at CMU School of Computer Science
• André Costa (PT) – Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa / Computer Science Department at CMU School of Computer Science

Ph.D. Program in Engineering and Public Policy:

• Reyhaneh Mohsenzadeh Yazdi (Iran) – Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto /  Department of Engineering and Public Policy at CMU College of Engineering
• Maximilian Vieweg (Austria) – Instituto Superior Técnico / CMU –  Department of Engineering and Public Policy at CMU College of Engineering

Ph.D. Program in Language Technologies:

• André Duarte (PT) – Instituto Superior Técnico / Language Technologies Institute at CMU  School of Computer Science
• Daniel Chechelnitsky (USA) – Instituto Superior Técnico / Language Technologies Institute at CMU School of Computer Science

Ph.D. Program in Software Engineering:

• Manuel Barros (PT) – Universidade do Minho / Software and Societal Systems Department at CMU School of Computer Science.

Every year the major league baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, hosts CMU day at PNC Park. This year it took place on September 8th, and the CMU Portugal students got to participate! 

Attending students were from the 4 CMU departments: Engineering and Public Policy (EPP), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and Computer Science (CS).

This was a great way to kick off the academic year as the Program welcomes 12 students to spend the Fall semester CMU: 5 Affiliated PhDs and 7 Dual Degree PhDs who will join the CMU Portugal community in Pittsburgh. 

Later in the semester, the CMU Portugal Program will also  welcome 18 visiting students and faculty members, who will be joining the CMU Portugal community in Pittsburgh. 

The Program also has an open call for PRR (Plan for Recovery and Resilience) Collaborative Research Grants until October 15th. For more information, please read the call terms on our website. 

Attending students: Marta Freitas, António Brito, Catarina Fidalgo, Hugo Simão, Brissa Acevedo, André Costa, Afonso Tinoco, José Gomes, João Tomé, Duarte Sousa, Eduard Pinconschi.

A new group of 11 students was selected under the fourth edition of the Affiliated Ph.D. Programs initiative and will begin their studies in the 2024/25 academic year. This CMU Portugal initiative offers Ph.D. scholarships in selected cutting-edge areas of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), related to the scope of the Program. 

Students will be fully hosted by Portuguese Universities with scholarships funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), having the opportunity of spending a research period at Carnegie Mellon for up to 1 year. Upon completing their Ph.D. studies, these candidates will receive a diploma from their Portuguese host University.

The main focus of the Affiliated Ph.D. Programs initiative is to strengthen the collaboration between Portuguese higher education institutions and Portuguese companies through a strong partnership with Carnegie Mellon University. Candidates were encouraged to apply with work plans involving the collaboration of Portuguese ICT companies, and most have answered this challenge. Through their Ph.D. journey, the new students will work closely with companies such as AMBISIG, Invisible Lab, PDMFC, Unbabel and VMWare.

This year, 11 Scholarships were granted to students in the following CMU Portugal research areas:  (4) Computer Science, (1) Electrical and Computer Engineering, (1) Engineering and Public Policy, (3) Human-Computer Interaction, and (2) Machine Learning.

In Portugal, the Ph.D. candidates will be hosted by six different institutions: (5) Instituto Superior Técnico,  (2) Faculty of Engineering – University of Porto (FEUP), (1) NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA), (1) Universidade da Beira Interior, (1) Universidade de Coimbra, (1) Universidade do Minho. 

During their one-year research period at CMU, candidates will be hosted at 6 CMU Departments: (1) Civil and Environmental Engineering, (1) Computer Science, (3) Electrical and Computer Engineering, (1) Engineering and Public Policy, (3) Human-Computer Interaction and (2) Machine Learning. 

All candidates were selected after a rigorous selection process by a committee of faculty members from Portuguese Universities and CMU. Here are the new Affiliated Ph.D. students by research area:

Computer Science

• Álvaro Silva (Faculdade de Engenharia – Universidade do Porto, Departamento de Engenharia Informática, Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Informática);
• Ehsan Farzadnia (Universidade de Coimbra, Departamento de Engenharia Informática, Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Informática)
• Oraib Almegdadi (Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia – Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Departamento de Informática, Programa Doutoral em Informática);
• Susana Marques (Universidade do Minho, Departamento de Informática, Programa Doutoral em Informática)

Electrical and Computer Engineering:

• Francisco Vieira (Faculdade de Engenharia – Universidade do Porto, Departamento de Engenharia Informática, Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Informática e de Computadores);

Engineering and Public Policy:

• João Paiva (Universidade da Beira Interior, Departamento de Engenharia Eletromecânica, Programa Doutoral em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial);

Human-Computer Interaction:

• Matteo Capello (Instituto Superior Técnico, Departamento de Engenharia Informática,  Programa Doutoral em Media Digitais);
• Mathilde Gouin (Instituto Superior Técnico, Departamento de Engenharia Informática,  Programa Doutoral em Media Digitais);
• Ying Xu (Instituto Superior Técnico, Departamento de Engenharia Informática,  Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Informática e de Computadores);

Machine Learning:

• Francisco Guedes (Instituto Superior Técnico, Departamento de Engenharia Informática, Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Informática e de Computadores);
• Mariana Ferreira Nunes (Instituto Superior Técnico, Departamento de Engenharia, Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Biomédica)

2023/24 Affiliated Ph.D. candidates
2022/23 Affiliated Ph.D. candidates
2021/22 Affiliated Ph.D. Candidates 

Updated in September 2025.

The call is open to CMU research teams and will foster and enable the collaboration of CMU faculty with Portuguese universities, faculty, and researchers at companies involved in the Portuguese PRR Mobilizing Agenda funded by the EU Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PRR). CMU Proposals must describe how the CMU team will collaborate with Portuguese research Mobilizing Agendas projects.

Proposals are for one year, with funding up to $75,000 per project for the CMU team only. Using the Proposal Template, CMU PIs must identify the:

• Collaborating PRR project and Portugal PI
• Proposal Abstract (single paragraph)
• Description of the work plan and tasks to be completed (one page maximum)
• CMU Budget, up to $75,000, including appropriate CMU overhead

Submissions will be accepted from August 26, 2024, through October 15, 2024, at 11:59PM Pittsburgh time (EDT) through the submissions form.

The Terms of the Call are available here.

The Proposal template and a CMU Budget template can be found here.

For questions, please email CMUPortugal@andrew.cmu.edu

Nicolas Christin, a long-time collaborator of CMU Portugal, has been appointed Department Head of the Software and Societal Systems (S3D) department at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

Christin has advised 2 CMU Portugal Dual Degree Ph.D.  Students, 1 Affiliated Ph.D. student, and has served as project PI for CMU Portugal Exploratory Research Projects (ERPs) DAnon – Supervised Deanonymization of Dark Web Traffic for Cybercrime Investigation, PassCert – Exploring the Impact of Formal Verification on the Adoption of Password Security Software, and DoubleChain – Supporting ubiquitous and fully decentralized supply chain operations through blockchain technology. Christin was also a collaborator of the Large Scale Collaborative Research Project BuildingHope. 

Christin began his career at CMU in 2005 as a systems scientist. Through his years at CMU he has held many notable positions including assistant research professor, a joint appointment in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, a courtesy appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, faculty member of CyLab, and the director of S3D’s Societal Computing Ph.D. program. 

For more information on Christin’s research, visit this article posted recently through CMU news.

Credits: Carnegie Mellon University

On July 10th, a delegation from the Innovation College of Korea visited the Beato Innovation District in  Lisbon, hosted by the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, INESC ID – Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores: Investigação e Desenvolvimento, and ITI – Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI). 

Ki-Seok Nam, Head of the Project Team from the Innovation Support Project Group at the Council for the Innovation College of Korea (ICK), welcomed the delegation of ICK, a consortium established to promote innovative development among 104 specialist colleges in South Korea. The group is currently in Europe to explore research and development opportunities and collaborative initiatives such as the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program. Recently, South Korea has completed negotiations to become the first East Asian nation to ‘associate to’ the European Union’s Horizon Europe program, starting in 2025. 

Silvia Castro, Executive Director of the CMU Portugal Program, launched the session and shared an overview of the Program’s initiatives. The round of presentations continued with Inês Lynce, President of INESC-ID and National Co-Director of CMU Portugal, and Nuno Nunes, President of ITI  and National Co-Director of CMU Portugal, who presented an overview of both  Institutes, their research work and ecosystems, and of the projects carried out in the areas of ICT.  José Mota Leal, Project Manager of Beato Innovation District, also attended the meeting to introduce how the Hub has become an innovation center for creative and technological companies based in Lisbon and the Unicorn Factory Lisboa as a platform to support startups and scaleups. To close the meeting, Ricardo Pinto and Francisco Paiva from the Mobility and International Cooperation Office of the Instituto Superior Técnico shared  an overview of the technological  school. 

In 2024, CMU Portugal will host 18 research visitors from Portuguese Institutions at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) field: 8 faculty & researchers and 10 master’s students & recent master’s graduates. The CMU Portugal’s Mobility initiatives “Visiting Students” and “Visiting Faculty & Researchers” are supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT). 

The 8 selected candidates under the Visiting Faculty & Researchers Program will have the opportunity to spend up to 2 months engaging in ICT research, education, and innovation. They will collaborate with peers at Carnegie Mellon University,  gaining valuable insights into the university’s culture and best practices.  This  group of eight new scholars represent six different Portuguese Academic Institutions: (1) Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics (CLSBE), NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA), (1) Faculty of Sciences –  Universidade de Lisboa  (FCUL), (3) Instituto Superior Técnico (Técnico), (1) Universidade do Minho (UMinho), and (1) Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave (IPCA).

They will be hosted in six CMU Departments including the Heinz College, Mathematical Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Robotics Institute, the Computer Science Department and the HCI Institute. This program has already benefited 89 faculty members from Portuguese research centers, a total of 97, including the 2024 visitors.                                                                                   

The CMU Portugal Visiting Students Program will support 10 visits to CMU in 2024. The students  will have the opportunity to spend up to three months working in research in ICT at CMU, mentored by leading faculty and researchers, fully immersing themselves in Carnegie Mellon’s culture. These selected candidates represent four different Portuguese Institutions: (2) Faculty of Engineering – University of Porto (FEUP), (5) Instituto Superior Técnico (Técnico), (2) NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA) and (1) Universidade de Coimbra (UC).

They will be hosted in seven  CMU Departments including the Computer Science Department, the Language Technologies Institute, the Robotics Institute, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering,  and Electrical & Computer Engineering. This initiative has already benefited 59 students from Portuguese Universities, a total of 69, including the 2024 visitors.  

2024 Visiting Faculty & Researchers:

• Alcides Fonseca, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, hosted at the Robotics Institute and the National Robotics Engineering Center by Christopher S. Timperley.
  Research Topic: Applying software verification techniques to prevent misconfigurations in ROS.            
                                                              
• Alessandro Gianola, Assistant Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, hosted at the Computer Science Department by Ruben Martins.
  Research Topic: Establish standardized and optimized SAT-based methods for the automatic analysis of DAPs.
  

• Ana Isabel Neto, Assistant Researcher at INESC-ID, hosted at the Robotics Institute by Reid Simmons.
  Research Topic: Human-robot interaction, robots acting as social mediators

• Anna Bernard, Assistant Researcher at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, hosted at the Heinz College by Michael D. Smith.
  
  Research Topic: Intersection of cultural and digital economics; policy piracy, intellectual property, and technological disruption
  

• Fabio Chalub, Associate Professor at Nova School of Science and Technology, hosted at Department of Mathematical Sciences by Robert Pego.
  Research Topic: Using modern techniques in kinetic models to define spatial models in epidemiology
  

• João Ferreira, Associate Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, hosted at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department by Limin Jia.
  Research Topic: Language-based security, and automated program repair.
  

• José Pereira, Associate Professor at University of Minho, hosted at the Computer Science Department by Andy Pavlo.
  Research Topic: Database systems, collaboration network, dependable distributed systems
  

• Nuno Rodrigues, Associate Professor at Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, hosted at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute by John Stamper.
  Research Topic: Large Language Model (LLM) in the Osler project with medical algorithms
  

2024 Visiting Students:

• Carlos Carvalho, Master alum at Instituto Superior Técnico, hosted by the Language Technologies Institute by Shinji Watanabe.
  Research Topic/field: Automatic speech recognition (ASR)
  

• Diogo Araújo, Master student at Instituto Superior Técnico, hosted at the Robotics Institute by Fernando De La Torre.
  Research Topic: Vision transformers (ViTs) and multiple instance learning (MIL) to identify the patches of interest in dermoscopic images.
  
  
• Frederico Vicente, Master alum at Nova School of Science and Technology, hosted at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department  by Soummya Kar.
  Research Topic: Federated Learning frameworks, develop new neural mechanisms.
  
  
• Gabriel Santos,  Master student at University of Coimbra, hosted at the Mechanical Engineering Department by Carmel Majidi.
  Research Topic: Fabricate micro-electrode arrays to be embedded in the soft neural probe
  
  
• Gonçalo Frazão, Master student at Instituto Superior Técnico, hosted at the Robotics Institute by Fernando De La Torre.
  Research Topic: Pioneering system capable of hybrid multiple object location and tracking in large spaces; robotics, artificial intelligence, and computer vision. 
• Gonçalo Mesquita, Master student at Instituto Superior Técnico, hosted at the Robotics Institute by Artur W. Dubrawski.
  Research Topic: Computer vision in biomedical imaging

• João Mesquita, Master student at the Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto, hosted at the Biomedical Engineering Department by Steven M. Chase.
  Research Topic: Neuromorphic computing, to analyze neuronal activity in real-time
  
  
• Martim Afonso, Master alum at Instituto Superior Técnico, hosted at the Computer Science Department by Ruben Martins.
  Research Topic: Using LLMs to identify faulty lines in software
  
  
• Sahil Kumar, Master student at NOVA School of Science and Technology, hosted at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute by Hong Shen.
  Research Topic: Developing a causal explanation method tailored for Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) in healthcare applications
  
  
• Tiago Santos, Master alum at Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto, hosted at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department by James C. Hoe.
  Research Topic: Heterogeneous Computing using CPU-FPGA systems

2023 News

 

The 5cm cubic satellite “PROMETHEUS-1”, the size of a Rubik’s-Cube, developed under CMU Portugal Exploratory Research project Prometheus, will soon be launched to Space.

Alba Orbital, the world’s leading PocketQube company, has announced that seven pocket-sized satellites from six countries, including “PROMETHEUS-1”, are scheduled to lift off as part of flight SpaceX’s Transporter-12 Rideshare mission, scheduled for the fall of 2024.

PROMETHEUS-1 and the other six satellites, were integrated into Alba Orbital’s PocketQube Deployer (‘AlbaPod’) at their new facilities in Glasgow, the world’s first PocketQube factory in the beginning of july.

After integration, the cluster of pocket-sized satellites will be shipped to SpaceX before hitching a ride to Low Earth Orbit.

PROMETHEUS-1 was developed at Universidade do Minho in collaboration with Instituto Superior Técnico  and Carnegie Mellon University, to provide easy access to space for the research and education community. The project aims to test and validate the Pycubed-mini platform designed at CMU’s Rexlab by Zac Manchester team. Alexandre Ferreira da Silva, PI of the project, aims to use this platform in the next academic year in a classroom as an education tool for Aerospace Engineering students at UMinho.

PROMETHEUS project was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), and this initiative aims to enhance research and educational access to space. 

PocketQubes satellites have the right features for education and research purposes. Their small size, cost, and build simplicity (based on COTS), provide versatile options for various missions, from educational projects to advanced technological demonstrations.

Watch here Prometheus getting ready to be launched!

Stay tuned for further updates on PROMETHEUS-1 in the next few months!

In the Media: Expresso, Rádio Universitária do Minho

More in the Alba Orbital original article here.