Juan Villegas Cortez, PhD.

Welcome.

Dr. Juan Villegas Cortez is a Tenured Research Professor in the Systems Department, Division of Basic Sciences and Engineering, at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Azcapotzalco campus (UAM-A). He holds a Level 1 National Researcher appointment within the National System of Researchers (SNI-CECIHTI), active through December 2026, and a PRODEP Desirable Profile renewed through October 2029. He is a member of the Research and Innovation Network in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science of the Tecnológico Nacional de México (2026–2029).

He earned a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from UAM Iztapalapa (1996), graduating with the University Merit Medal. He completed an M.Sc. in Computer Science at UAM Azcapotzalco (2005) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Center for Computing Research of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (CIC-IPN, 2009), with the dissertation "Automatic Synthesis of Associative Memories via Genetic Programming." In 2017 he conducted a postdoctoral research stay at the Universidad de Extremadura (UEX), Mérida Campus, Spain, as a Fundación Carolina fellow, in collaboration with the Artificial Evolution Group (GEA).

His research interests include bio-inspired algorithms—with emphasis on genetic programming—, artificial and evolutionary neural networks, associative memories, pattern recognition, digital image processing, image segmentation, computer vision, and machine learning. He has published more than 79 peer-reviewed contributions in high-impact international journals and conference proceedings—including Springer LNCS/LNAI, IEEE, Elsevier, MDPI, and other ISI/JCR- and Scopus-indexed venues—under WoS identifier F-6421-2010 and ORCID 0000-0001-8918-1044. He maintains an active research collaboration with UEX within the Spanish project PID2023-147409NB-C22.

In terms of human resources development, he has supervised more than 15 master's and doctoral theses and over 14 undergraduate engineering capstone projects. He has served as principal investigator on research projects funded by PROMEP/PRODEP and UAM, and has completed more than 20 research stays at national and international institutions, including CICESE, Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, UASLP, and the Universidad de Extremadura in Spain.

He is a Professional Member of IEEE—with over 10 years of seniority, membership no. 90258166—and of ACM (membership no. 8053569), as well as an active member of the Mexican Society of Artificial Intelligence (SMIA). He serves on the Artificial Intelligence Commission at UAM Azcapotzalco, responsible for proposing the new undergraduate AI program, and on the Divisional Evaluation Committee of CBI. He has participated as a reviewer for SNI/CONAHCYT, PRODEP, and several high-impact international journals, including Expert Systems with Applications, IEEE Access, and The Visual Computer.