Where are you now?

Every month INESC TEC sends highly qualified individuals into the market. These individuals often then go on to occupy important positions in some of the best national and international companies or they opt to form spin-offs. As the best way to perform technology transfer is through individuals, this section is dedicated to collaborators that trained at INESC TEC and now star in other companies and institutions.

Mário Couto, EDP Distribuição, Capacity and Dispatch Management

• Year when you began working at INESC TEC and when you left: 2010-2013
• Units at INESC TEC where you worked: Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES)
• Projects you participated in: ASIRP – Análise e Seleção de Investimentos para Redução de Perdas; CitInES – City and Industry Energy Strategy

Explain your experience since leaving INESC TEC

In late October 2013, I started working as a Medium Voltage Grid Operator at EDP Distribuição, a company that is well known to INESC TEC, and mainly to CPES, due to various joint projects they worked on. I still work with power systems similarly to what I did at INESC TEC, but I’m now working on a more operational component.

It was at INESC TEC that I started my professional activity and the knowledge and experience I gained at INESC TEC with the people I worked with will certainly be useful in my professional career in the future.

Now that I have been working at EDP Distribuição for over a year, I realise that the company pays close attention to the theme of smart grids. It was at INESC TEC that I first contacted with the functionalities of Smart Grids, electric mobility and energy storage in distribution networks. Taking into consideration the changes that are expected in the power grids, the possibility of contacting with these themes so early in my career, is unquestionably an asset.

I believe that the institution hasn’t changed much since I left. INESC TEC has been following a consolidated strategy based on relevant results, with highly skilled people that can provide answers to challenges.

Cátia Silva, Computational NeuroEngineering Laboratory (CNEL), University of Florida, PhD candidate

• Year when you began working at INESC TEC and when you left: 2012 - 2013
• Centres at INESC TEC where you worked: Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES)
• Projects you participated in: ARGUS - Sistema de previsão de potência eólica

Explain your experience since leaving INESC TEC

INESC TEC changed my life professionally and personally. Over the last few months I’ve had the opportunity to work with Professor José Carlos Príncipe in neural networks (autoencoders in particular), and afterwards in a project from a PhD student of Professor Príncipe’s (rate-distortion autoencoders).

Later I applied to an FCT PhD grant with Professor Príncipe as my scientific advisor. It was accepted and then I left INESC TEC and travelled to Gainesville, to study in one of the most important universities in the U.S. – the University of Florida.

Right now I’m a PhD student (candidate!) at CNEL (ECE department), where several research groups work on signal processing, machine learning and computational neuroscience.

My experience at INESC TEC has an unquestionable value. I maintained contact with some INESC TEC members and we have been collaborating in scientific papers, including a conference paper and another paper which has recently been submitted to IJEPES.

I have read in BIP about INESC P&D Brasil and that some INESC TEC members are already working there. I think that INESC TEC is still investing in innovative research and is succeeding. I would like to take this opportunity to say “hi” to my former colleagues.

Márcio Lunardelli Ribeiro, Specialist – Coordinator of the Operation and Maintenance of Protection Systems, EDP Distribuição

• Year when you began working at INESC TEC and when you left: 2010 - 2011
• Centres at INESC TEC where you worked: Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES)
• Projects you participated in: INOVGRID; REIVE - Redes Elétricas Inteligentes e Veículos Elétricos; MERGE - Mobile Energy Resources for Grids of Electricity

Explain your experience since leaving INESC TEC

After working at INESC TEC for 18 months, in 2012 I started working at EDP Distribuição, in the Substation Maintenance department, more specifically in the component of substation protection and automation.

At INESC TEC I was able to improve my knowledge in the area I focused on in my dissertation. Then I contacted with other areas I was not as comfortable with at the time, but were fundamental for me to develop an important skill: the ability to quickly adapt to change. Other than that, I brought with me a culture of excellence that is fundamental in my current job.

I believe that INESC TEC hasn’t changed much since I left despite the recent restructuring process. More importantly, INESC TEC has managed to face the current economic situation in which there is a progressive lack of investment in research. But INESC TEC has been continuously investing and participating in important European projects.