Ana Garcia of UC3M

In this talk we discuss some tips that may guide the young researchers while they progress in their careers. The talk is based on the experience of the speaker and her work in the field of wireless communications. First some highlights of the speaker’s research work are provided. Then, some ideas are shared focusing on challenges and choices.

Biography:

Ana García Armada is a Professor at Universidad Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, where she is leading the Communications Research Group. She has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Bell Labs and University of Southampton. She is an IEEE Fellow. She has published more than 300 papers in international journals and conference proceedings and she holds seven granted patents. She was awarded the third place Bell Labs Prize 2014 for shaping the future of information and communications technology. She received the Outstanding service award from the IEEE ComSoc Signal Processing and Communications Electronics technical committee in 2019 and the Outstanding service award from the IEEE ComSoc Women in Communications Engineering Standing Committee in 2020. She received the IEEE ComSoc/KICS Exemplary Global Service Award in 2022.

Email:

Address:Portugal

Isabel Trancoso of Instituto Superior Técnico

The Girls in AI project aims to share the paths of former and current Técnico students who followed a career in Artificial Intelligence (AI), showing the endless opportunities in this area and inspiring more girls to follow them. The participants talk about their work and what attracts them most in this highly interdisciplinary area that has such a strong societal impact.

Their journeys are very diverse both in terms of their initial background, as well as their application area. Healthcare is one of the most represented areas, from post-stroke rehabilitation to diagnosis of skin lesions or detection of pathologies from speech. Several students/alumnae also share their enthusiasm for robot interaction, either communicating with children with autism spectrum disorders or with visual impairments, or showing how social robots are capable of working (and playing!) in teams. Others devoted their work to teaching computers how to design programs. The area of natural language processing is also well represented, with its many applications, such as machine translation. Other alumnae share their paths in industry, in companies dealing with customer support, mobility disorders, or fraud detection in bank transactions. 

Despite this diversity, pursuing the so-called pillars of Responsible AI is a common thread in all of the journeys, with a particular emphasis on challenges such as security, explainability and modelling uncertainty. Another common thread is the contagious enthusiasm with which they all end their brief video clips, saying how great it is to be part of this AI community that is shaping our future.

Biography:

Isabel Trancoso is a Full Professor at IST, University of Lisbon (retired), and the former President of the Scientific Council of INESC-ID, the institute where she did all her career in speech research, with the exception of a period at AT&T Bell Laboratories. She was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing and had many leadership roles in IEEE and ISCA (International Speech Communication Association), such as chairing the IEEE Fellow Committee and being the President of ISCA. She was elevated to Fellow of IEEE in 2011, of ISCA in 2014 and of ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent systems) in 2025.  She was the recipient of the 2024 ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement.

Email:

Fernanda Coutinho of ISEC/IPC

In this talk, the speaker shares her personal journey in one of the fields with the lowest female representation — electrical engineering. From the choices that brought her here to the obstacles she faced along the way, this is a candid look at what it really takes to carve out a place in this field. But her story didn't stop with herself. Discover the initiatives she has been — and continues to be — involved in to make engineering, and robotics in particular, a more welcoming, diverse and inspiring space for girls who are still figuring out their path.

Biography:

Fernanda de Madureira Coutinho holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Coimbra and a Master's degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Aveiro. She is a Coordinator Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Coimbra Institute of Engineering (ISEC), Polytechnic of Coimbra, where she teaches in areas ranging from embedded systems and robotics to medical devices.
She currently serves as President of the ISEC Council, Coordinator of the Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering, National Representative to the European Committee for Standardization on active implantable medical devices, and co-founder and researcher at the Research Centre for Asset Management and Systems Engineering (RMC2+). She is involved in and leads some R&D projects, with research interests spanning medical robotics, adaptive control, and robotic telemanipulation.
Committed to promoting girls and women in STEM, she is Vice-Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering Portugal, a member of the Working Group on "Research, Gender and Diversity in Engineering Education" of the Portuguese Society for Engineering Education, and was the first Robotics Workshop Leader at the first TUMO Portugal centre.

Email:

Address:ISEC/IPC, Rua Pedro Nunes, Coimbra, Centro, Portugal, 3030-199

Helena Ramos of Instituto de Telecomunicações and Instituto Superior Técnico

Career path / challenges / why choosing engineering? What can be changed?

Biography:

Helena Geirinhas Ramos is Full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, where she has been a member of the teaching staff since 1980. She conducts her research at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT). Her main research areas include nondestructive evaluation, eddy currents and guided ultrasounds, PC-based instrumentation, transducers, measurement interfaces, ADC testing, and the modeling of ferromagnetic materials. She has participated over 20 research projects in these fields.
She is the author or co-author of 10 book chapters, 69 scientific papers in international journals, and more than 200 conference proceedings. She has supervised or co-supervised 11 Ph.D. theses, over 40 master’s theses and internships, and has served on numerous national and international academic juries.
Currently, she is member of Instituto de Telecomunicações Board of Directors. Among her previous significant management roles are Vice President of IST (2020–2024), Coordinator of the IST Working Group on Gender Balance (appointed by the IST President, in the period (2016–2020)), Vice President of the IST Scientific Board (2009-2017); Member of the IST Governing Board and Vice Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of IST, Coordinator of Scientific Area, Applied Electromagnetics and Electrical Measurements Scientific Area (1998 – 2001).
She currently serves as Treasurer of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society (IMS). She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Open Access Instrumentation and Measurement Journal and previously served as Associate Editor of Measurement (Elsevier, Q1) for two years.
She regularly acts as an expert evaluator for the European Commission. She is also a member of the evaluators’ boards for R&D projects for several national and international agencies, including the Slovak Research and Development Agency, the Italian Research Assessment Exercise, Portugal’s National Innovation Agency, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). She is member of Ordem dos Engenheiros, Portuguese Society of Metrology and Forum for Nondestructive Evaluation.
She is Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee (TC-1) on Nondestructive Evaluation and Industrial Inspection, and a member of the Steering Committee for Electromagnetic Nondestructive Evaluation (ENDE).
Full CV available at:
http://www.it.pt/person_detail_p.asp?ID=478

Email:

Address:Basic Sciences – Lx, IT/ IST/DEEC, Torre Norte, 11º piso, Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal, 1049-001

Catarina Gonçalves of Capgemini Engineering and Universidade da Beira Interior

Career path / challenges / why choosing engineering? What can be changed?

Biography:

Catarina Gonçalves is an Embedded Software Engineer with 3+ years of professional experience in the automotive industry, where she has developed her expertise on V&V and automated testing.

She always had a passion for intelligent systems that led her to pursue an interest in bionic robotics and later joined a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering, where she honed-in her skills in electronics
and computer science. It was then that she discovered the embedded systems world and ended up developing a MIL simulation of an autonomous road vehicle.
Currently, Catarina is doing her PhD studies also in the automotive area for 3D object detection and
segmentation based on LIDAR sensors.

Address:Belmonte, Centro, Portugal

Cristina Saeta of Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio

Career path / challenges / why choosing engineering? What can be changed?

Biography:

Cristina Saeta is a strategic marketing consultant and university lecturer specializing in digital transformation, innovation, and data-driven strategy. She holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (Spain), including an Erasmus year at Universidade da Beira Interior (Portugal), as well as a degree in Business Administration.

She has more than 15 years of international experience in brand strategy, having worked for global companies such as Red Bull and llaollao. Cristina currently teaches Marketing and Business Intelligence at Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio (UAX), combining academic work with consulting projects focused on the intersection of technology, AI, and business strategy.

Address:Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Virginie Felizardo of University of Beira Interior

Career path / challenges / why choosing engineering? What can be changed?

Biography:

Virginie Felizardo PhD is in Computer Science with background in biomedical informatics, bionic systems, and biomedical sciences. Currently she is a researcher at Instituto de Telecomunicações, Guest Assistant Professor at the University of Beira Interior, and R&D consultant supervising PhD students in industry.

Virginie got experience in interdisciplinary research combining healthcare, data science, and engineering, with a focus on biosignal processing, predictive algorithms, and machine learning for medical applications. 

Professor Virginie is passionate about teaching and mentoring, she is actively involved in supporting students and encouraging new generations—especially girls—to explore careers in engineering and technology.

Address:Covilhã, Centro, Portugal

Beatriz Rato of Devoteam

Career path / challenges / why choosing engineering? What can be changed?

Biography:

Beatriz Rato, 26 years old, Covilhã. Her academic journey began in 2017 at the University of Beira Interior, where she graduated in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and then pursued a Master's in Mathematics and Applications at the University of Aveiro. She started working in 2022 as a Trainee at Devoteam, where she currently works as a Senior OutSystems Developer.

Address:Covilhã, Centro, Portugal