on 04-06-2020
I became a Professor at UFPel, where I am currently teaching and advising students of both undergraduate and graduate levels at the Computer Science department. (see more)
In 2008 I was a last-year undergraduate student in Computer Science at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), in Brazil. That year, a scholarship from the Santander Foundation allowed me to stay for one semester as an intern at the Instituto de Telecomunicações (Coimbra), under the guidance of Professor Luis A. da Silva Cruz. My task during the internship was to design hardware architectures for the H.264/AVC video coding standard and to prototype them on FPGAs. Despite the short period of six months, the internship at IT was my first experience outside Brazil, so I tried to take as much as I could from it. That opportunity proved to be extremely important in my academic life later on. After finishing my M.Sc. in Computer Science in Brazil (2010), Prof. Luis Cruz invited me to apply for an IT scholarship to work on a project related with the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, which was still in its initial steps. Back to Portugal, I also applied and was selected as a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Coimbra. After four years and a half, I presented a thesis entitled “Computational Complexity Reduction and Scaling for High Efficiency Video Encoders”. My research at IT focused on decreasing the computational effort required by modern video encoders, namely the HEVC encoders, with small loss or preferably no loss at all in terms of compression rates or image quality. Just after my Ph.D. conclusion, I returned to my hometown in the southernmost state of Brazil, where I started my activities as a postdoctoral researcher at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel). One year later, I became a Professor at UFPel, where I am currently teaching and advising students of both undergraduate (B.Sc. and B.Eng.) and graduate levels (M.Sc. and Ph.D.) at the Computer Science department. Along with other four professors from UFPel, we founded the Video Technology Research Group (ViTech) in 2016, which is one of the largest Brazilian research groups in the field of video technologies. Today, our research group counts with over 40 undegraduate and graduate students, all of which research on topics related to image and video coding algorithms, video compression standards, hardware architectures, and multimedia transport and delivery. Several of these works still occur in association with IT-Coimbra, which has received five other researchers from UFPel (either professors or students) since the beginning of this fruitful collaboration. Today I can surely look back and say that the short six-month experience I had at IT in 2008 has spanned for over one decade and defined most of my academic and professional life!
on 04-06-2020
From there on I’m engaged in the participation of national and international research projects as well as in the design of optimization algorithms for the company planning tool. (see more)
I started my story with IT in 2007, after I finished my pre-Bologna course in Applied Mathematics and Computation. At that time I joined the Optical Communications group of IT Aveiro under the supervision of Prof. Armando Nolasco Pinto. The task was to develop statistical tools for the dimensioning of multilayer networks and the project was funded by IT and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). At that time I didn’t even know that optical fibers existed! This project was also the opportunity to pursuit an MSc in Mathematics and Applications. After, I had collaborated in various research projects regarding the optimization of multilayer networks, funded either by FCT and PT-Inovação. This was also an important time as allowed me to gain experience in industry and academia oriented research (not always both have the same goal). However, the big step was done in 2011 when I was invited by Prof. Paulo Monteiro to join the research group of NSN as a PhD candidate. It was a big decision as I needed to move to Lisbon but attend all my PhD classes in Aveiro, resulting in a lot of time on the road! Transport networks were moving from point-to-point optical networks to multilayered meshed networks, and the optimization tools where key in this business. During my PhD I developed heuristic algorithms and ILP models that take into account the proprietary constraints of the equipment. Apparently, my job went well and in 2014 I was invited to join the research group of Coriant (in the meanwhile Coriant was formed comprising NSN optical business, Tellabs and Sycamore). From there on I’m engaged in the participation of national and international research projects as well as in the design of optimization algorithms for the company planning tool. As aforementioned, I still collaborate with IT and try to help new students to pursuit the same road as I. IT really changed my mind, and if in 2007 I would say that with some sadness inside, today I can said with proud that “I have entered IT as a mathematician and left as an engineer”.