I am a full Prof. of Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering) at the Technnology Division of the Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR Berlin) since August 2010.
Head of the Computer Science Division (in German: Fachleiterin der Fachrichtung Informatik, and what in other countries is considered a department) at the Department 2: Cooperative Studies Business • Technology (in German: Fachbereich Duales Studium Wirtschaft • Technik, and what in other countries is considered a faculty), since April 2022.
Academic Co-Director of the Master's study programme Digital Transformation (M.Sc.) at the Berlin Professional School, HWR Berlin (December 2020 to September 2024). Co-creator of the Master's (concept, curriculum, formal documents, recruiting of students and partner companies, as well as international, outreach, and accreditation and examination-related activities, among many others).
Co-Founding Member of the Institute for Data-Driven Digital Transformation (d-cube), HWR Berlin, since Juni 2020.
Mentor at the Startup Incubator Berlin, HWR Berlin.
Co-Founder of the AGI Sentinel Initiative, AGISI.org.
AI Expert at #humanAIze, "A forum on AI and the public-private sector collaboration."
Advisory Board Member in different international projects.
With more than 36 years of research and teaching experience, I have served as invited speaker, panelist, session chair, author, and member of scientific boards and committees (among other roles) at several AI and non-AI leading conferences, workshops, projects, and other events and activities worldwide.
My current research fields include AI, in general, and some of its subfields, in particular, as well as AI ethics, digital ethics, software engineering methods and techniques, and computer science education. For example, I am especially interested in machine learning (a subfield of AI), metaheuristics (many machine learning algorithms are just metaheuristics, like neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, among others are), knowledge-based systems (also part of AI, i.e. of symbolic AI), robotics in education (because of the overlaps with AI), and software design and development including Agile (AI is software). My scientific work addresses all those and related fields, as well as distributed AI, agents and multiagent systems, automatic differentiation, and socionics. See my research interests for more! By the way, for a thorough and arguably most accurate account of the history of AI, I professionally and heartfully recommend you to read Jürgen Schmidhuber's Annotated History of Modern AI and Deep Learning.
Part of my work focuses on intelligence research, particularly on defining and understanding both (machine) intelligence and the boundaries of its discourse. For instance, take a look at the Defintly App, an easy-to-use app I created to help define concepts well (like the concept of intelligence). It guides users through a process that constructs a definition step-by-step and by considering 30 quality criteria that focus on the main characteristics or properties a definition should entail in order to be considerer a "good" definition. It also exemplifies the concept of intelligence through a collection that contains 30 definitions of human and machine intelligence. By the way, in my research I have found more than 500 such definitions; there still is no consensus in the field on how to define the term.
I was born and raised in Cuba. Germany is my second homeland since October 4th, 1999.
Photo of mine: Oana Popa-Costea.
Background picture: I took that picture when I visited Bletchley Park on March 4th, 2016. It is a side view of a working Bombe with trios of drums that are replicating the behaviour of the rotors in an Enigma machine. The security guard was very kind; he let me enter the restricted area to take a close-up picture of a working, very loud, real Bombe!
Ph.D. Computer Science (Dr. rer nat. in Informatik), Agent-Based Configuration of (Metaheuristic) Algorithms,(⋆) Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany (2005).
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Hans-Dieter Burkhard
[See Abstract (DE/EN) and Contents (ISBN: 978-3-8322-4010-3)]
[Thesis submitted on October 6th, 2024. See the slides of the Doctoral Dissertation (Viva) on Februry 25th, 2005.]
⋆: If I had to use a hyped AI language, the title of my PhD thesis would be something like “Intelligent, semiconscious hyperparameter tuning of agnostic machine learning-based general-purpose optimizers.” But no, I'm not that guy ...
M.Sc. Computer Science, Havana University, Cuba (1998): Implementation of Evolutionary Techniques and Design of Intelligent Agents for the Mathematical Modelling of Chemical Processes (in Spanish).
B.Sc. Mathematics Cybernetics (Best Thesis Award, student event), Havana University, Cuba (1992): Expert System for Parameter Estimation in Differential Equations (in Spanish).
03/2017 - 10/2019: Different English and teacher training courses at York Associates, York, UK, with European Union's Erasmus+ programme support.
2014: Berlin Higher Education Teaching Certification from the Berlin Center for Higher Education Instruction, Germany.
10/2003 - 12/2003: Scholarship from the Berliner Programm zur Förderung der Chancengleichheit von Frauen in Forschung und Lehre (Berlin Program to Promote Equal Opportunities of Woman in Research and Teaching), Berlin, Germany.
03/2003: International Summer School on Metaheuristics, Metaheuristics Network, Tenerife, Spain, with travel support from the Humboldt University of Berlin.
02/2003: 5th European Agent Systems Spring School, Barcelona, Spain, with grant from AgentLink, the network of excellence for agent-based computing.
10/2002 - 09/2003: Scholarship from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
04/2000 - 03/2002: Sandwich-Scholarship from the DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service.
10/1999 - 03/2000: German language courses (DAAD-sponsored, German Academic Exchange Service), Goethe-Institut, Göttingen, Germany.
03/1999: Summer School in Computer Science "Multimedia data bases for communication networks," Polytechnical University Cataluña and Havana University, Havana, Cuba.
01/1999: UNESCO Summer School in Computer Science "Computer Theory and Applications," Havana University, Havana, Cuba.
07/1996 - 01/1997: Study and research semester, Simón Bolívar University, Caracas, Venezuela, with travel grant from the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Italy.
06/1996: 2nd Iberoamerican Summer School in Computer Science, Iberoamerican Net of Software Technology (RITOS), Santa Cruz, Bolivia, with fellowship from the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation (AECI), Spain.
1995: Annual Prize to the Best Scientific Result on the Application of Computer Science (with coauthors), Havana University, Havana, Cuba.
1994: Annual Prize and National Prize to the Best Scientific Research (with coauthors), Ministry of High Education and Academy of Sciences, respectively, Cuba.
1993: Distinguished Researcher Award, Havana University, Havana, Cuba.
1993: Annual Prize to the Best Scientific Research Group (with coauthors), Havana University, Cuba.