Prof Alberto Ferreira De Souza, PhD (University College London)

My research career began in computer architecture and high-performance processing during my undergraduate studies in Electronic Engineering at UFRJ, through undergraduate research at the Systems Laboratory of the Graduate Program in Systems and Computer Engineering (PESC) at COPPE/UFRJ [1]. My undergraduate project, developed within PESC, was the first parallel machine developed in Brazil [2].

During my master's degree at COPPE, I conducted research in computer architecture and high-performance processing, being one of the designers of the NCP-1 supercomputer - Brazil's first supercomputer [3]. In the same period, I had my first contact with artificial intelligence in general and neural networks in particular, topics to which I would later dedicate myself.

In 1993, I joined UFES as a professor. From 1996 to 1999, I completed my PhD at University College London, UK, where I proposed the processor architecture called Dynamically Trace Scheduled VLIW (DTSVLIW) [4]. Upon returning, in 2002, I created the High-Performance Computing Laboratory (LCAD), which I coordinated until 2019, when I retired and began serving officially as a volunteer professor at UFES.

From the end of my doctorate to the present, I have contributed to the university in various capacities, including Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Informatics (PPGI), Coordinator of the Doctoral Program Creation Commission (created in 2010), Director of the Institute of Technology, Vice-Director of the Technology Center, Dean of Planning and Institutional Development, and Research Director of the university. In 2023, I was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus of UFES.

From the late 2000s, I began to dedicate myself more intensely to AI, neural networks, and their applications in autonomous robotics and other areas. I served as Paper Submission Chair of the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence 2018 (WCCI'2018) and Director of I2CA. My highest-impact scientific articles are from these areas.

Currently, I serve as a faculty member of the Graduate Program in Informatics (PPGI) at the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES). In addition to my academic activities, I am the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and co-founder of Lume Robotics S.A., the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and co-founder of AUMO S.A., and an advisor to Motora Technologies S.A., in which I also hold equity participation. While my earlier work concentrated on artificial intelligence for autonomous systems and large-scale computational infrastructures, my current research focus has increasingly shifted toward Digital Biology, particularly the integration of genomic foundation models, large neural architectures, and neurosymbolic reasoning frameworks for interpretable scientific discovery. Across academia and industry, my work aims to advance artificial intelligence and applied computational intelligence, fostering technology transfer and innovation between research laboratories and high-tech startups. You can learn more about me and my early academic trajectory here.