Three students from the School of Engineering of UMinho were recognized and awarded with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s New Talent Scholarships, an elite and highly competitive program that aims to create a new generation of successful researchers in Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Technologies and Mathematics.
Mafalda Alves, a 5th year student in the Integrated Master in Physics Engineering, branch of Information Physics, won one of the grants from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s New Talents in Quantum Technologies Program, reaffirming the excellence of EEUM students in this area, since in the other 2 editions of this program Afonso Rodrigues (2017-18) and Michael Oliveira (2018-19), students in the same course currently pursuing a doctorate at EEUM, were also awarded.
The project of the student who won one of the scholarships awarded in this edition is part of her MIEFis dissertation, in “Improving noise resilience of variational quantum eigensolvers via an adaptive ansatz”, being guided by Ernesto Galvão within the collaboration between UMinho and INL.
In the area of Artificial Intelligence there were two winners of a scholarship, João Pedro Correia, student of the Integrated Master in Informatics Engineering and João Miguel Alves, student of the Integrated Master in Biomedical Engineering. We leave here their testimonies about their participation in this program and future expectations:
João Pedro Correia:
“The area of artificial intelligence has always interested me in the enormous impact it has on the world and the fascinating applications that are shaping tomorrow. Thus, I was able to count on ISLab from the ALGORITMI center and Informatics department to encourage me to explore this field, both through computer engineering courses and, later, through collaborative projects.
When I was presented with the New Talents in Artificial Intelligence grant, I knew it would be a unique opportunity to deepen my knowledge in the area. Having the honor of conducting research associated with an undeniably prestigious foundation like the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation will be an excellent challenge, in which I will do my best, as I take with me both the notoriety of the MIEI course and that of the whole Engineering School”.
João Miguel Alves:
“The reason behind my application for the New Talents in Artificial Intelligence Program lies in the insatiable passion I have and have always had for this area. AI, which is in increasing evolution, assumes an enormous importance nowadays and we often take it for granted. Hence, the goal for which I applied was, in fact, to want to understand and deepen my knowledge about this field of technology and information, in order to better understand the world around me”.
These grants will enable students to research and study these subjects in depth, under the guidance of tutors, and to participate actively in a number of training workshops. The School of Engineering congratulates these students and wishes them much success!
