research
research statement and members of the lab or group
Research Statement
My research focuses on robust, interpretable, and trustworthy machine learning, particularly under real-world constraints such as distribution shift, class imbalance, weak supervision, and privacy requirements.
I have developed a sustained research agenda at the intersection of:
- robust learning
- uncertainty awareness
- explainability
with applications in medical decision support, biometrics, and safety-critical vision systems.
For over two decades, my goal has been to build machine learning systems that can reason from visual data in a robust, interpretable, and verifiable manner.
My work spans:
- methodological advances
- system-level integration
- deployment-oriented research
with the aim of ensuring reliability, transparency, and accountability beyond controlled benchmark conditions.
Research Group
π Visual Computing and Machine Intelligence (VCMI)
2024 β Leadership transitioned to Ana Filipa Sequeira
~2022 β VCMI and IPPR merged into a unified research structure within CTM
~2016 β Leadership transitioned to Helder Oliveira
2012 β Creation of the IPPR Area (Information Processing and Pattern Recognition), with VCMI as its main research group
2011 β Formal establishment of VCMI
The group name was formalised, along with the creation of its proposal, website, and mailing list
PhD Students
- 2022β JoΓ£o Diogo Fernandes Freitas Nunes β FEUP (supervisor)
- 2022β Bruno Fonseca β FEUP (supervisor)
- 2022β Beatriz Vieira β IST (cosupervisor)
- 2023β Hossein Zolfagharnasab β FEUP (supervisor)
- 2023β Arefeh Mazarei β FEUP (supervisor)
- 2024β Felipe Coutinho β FEUP (supervisor)
- 2024β Wenwu Ma β FEUP (supervisor)
- 2024β Chao Liu β FEUP (cosupervisor)
- 2024β Pedro Lima β FEUP (cosupervisor)
- 2024β Safa Vakili β FEUP (cosupervisor)
- 2025β Mariana Doria Prata Lima β LNCC (cosupervisor)
- 2025β Maria Salvador β FEUP (cosupervisor)
- 2025β Joaquim Fonseca β FEUP (cosupervisor)
- 2025β Juan Yuri DΓaz SΓ‘nchez β Vigo (cosupervisor)
- 2025β Luis Silva β FEUP (cosupervisor)
- 2026β Lucas Moreira β FEUP (supervisor)
- 2026β Bryan Ebiyau β FEUP/CMU (supervisor)
- 2026β Bryan Bosho β FEUP/CMU (supervisor)