I am an associate research scientist at Northeastern University working in the CESAR (Cognitive Embodied Social Agents Research) lab, led by Prof. Stacy Marsella. My research interests are mainly in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), involving the creation of autonomous and adaptive systems that learn and reason under uncertainty. This has involved novel combinations and development of machine learning (ML) techniques and evolutionary mechanisms. My approach is to create ML mechanisms inspired by human learning and decision-making and use ML to better understand how humans learn and make decisions in complex tasks.
I currently do research at CESAR in the topic of modeling human decision-making. I created a technique for automated cognitive behavior analysis (ACBA) aimed at discovering the underlying structures of human decision-making by using genetic programming. I also participate in the CRISP I (NSF CMMI) initiative in the modeling and implementation of AI decision-makers in the context of pharmaceutical supply-chains. I give invited lectures on the topic of reinforcement learning (RL) for the Foundations of AI course at Northeastern.
Prior to my current position I was a post-doctoral associate at GAIPS (Intelligent Agents and Synthetic Characters Group) / INESC-ID Lisbon, in Porto Salvo, Portugal. While at GAIPS, I participated in several collaborative projects, including: INSIDE (CMU-Portugal) in the topic of autonomous robot decision-making, EMOTE (EU-FP7) in the topic of ML for human-robot interaction (HRI), eCircus (FearNot!) and Orient (EU-FP6), in the topic of intelligent virtual characters development and CoWriter (EPFL), in the topic of HRI.
I completed the Ph.D. Program in Information Systems and Computer Engineering in 2013 at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Universidade de Lisboa in Portugal, under the supervision of Prof. Ana Paiva and Prof. Francisco S. Melo. My thesis focused on building more flexible and robust reward mechanisms for intrinsically-motivated reinforcement learning agents. I also worked as a lab assistant, teaching practical and theoretical classes for the Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Graphics courses at IST.
For more information, you can download my CV.