I am a Full Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), where I began my tenure in 2002. I earned my PhD in Electrical Engineering from Unicamp in 1998. Prior to joining UFMG, I served as a Professor at PUC/Minas from 1998 to 2002.
Since 2006, I have conducted research consulting for PETROBRAS, a leading Brazilian multinational energy company, applying Artificial Intelligence techniques with their financial support.
I have been a CNPq Research Fellow since 2000 and currently hold a Level 1A fellowship, the highest level awarded by CNPq in Brazil. I served as the elected Vice-President of The Brazilian Society of Automation (SBA) from 2023 to 2025.
My PhD supervision has been recognized with several awards from CAPES and UFMG for award-winning PhD theses in Brazil. I have also held visiting professorships at several institutions from 2014 to 2025, including the Harbin Institute of Technology, HIT (China), the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, UPHF (France), and the University of California San Diego, UCSD (USA).
My editorial roles include serving as Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Control, Automation and Electrical Systems (JCAE) for the 2026-2029 term and as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems (since 2021). Previously, I was an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (2014-2023) and a Guest Editor for special issues in several journals, including:IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Special Section on Artificial Intelligence in Industrial Systems; IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Focused Section on Real-time Monitoring, Diagnosis, and Prognosis and Health Management for Electric Vehichles; IET Control Theory & Applications Special Issue on Resilient Fuzzy Control Systhsis of Nonlinear Networked Systems Against Cyber-Attack; IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Focused Section on Health Monitoring, Management and Control of Complex Mechatronic Systems; and Journal of The Franklin Institute - Special Section on Recent Advances on Control and Diagnosis via Process Measurements.
Additionally, I have been a member of the Conference Board of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) for the 2020-2023 and 2023-2026 terms.
My main research interests are Intelligent Control; Artificial Intelligence Applications; Cyber-Physical Systems; Data-driven Control; Cyber-attack-tolerant Control; Fault-tolerant Control; Fault Detection, Diagnostics and Prognostics; and Consensus in Multi-agent Systems.