Vasco Amaral

Software Engineer, Professor, Researcher, and World Citizen

I am currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the Faculty of Science and Technology at UNL (Universidade Nova de Lisboa ). I am also a researcher (integrated member) of NOVA LINCS. I am elected President (2022-2025) of the Informatics Engineering College at Ordem dos Engenheiros.

Previously, I have worked at international institutes like DESY at the Hera-B experiment and CERN at the ATLAS Experiment as a research collaborator at LIP. In 2005, I obtained my PhD in Computer Science at the University of Mannheim (with a grant by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia do Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia) and the BSc in 1998 at IST ( Universidade de Lisboa).

My main goal is ... to contribute to a better world.

Well, … as I have to start from somewhere, and as Software is currently everywhere, I'll start in my own profession. Software is a fundamental tool, being directly or indirectly an enabler for almost every professional Human activity you can think of in modern society …

Therefore, I promote the rigorous use in Software Engineering of software models and processes to build rapidly better software systems, ensuring Quality both in the process and solution. This entails providing tools, processes, and modelling languages (not discarding their Usability) that cope with the engineering of complex multidisciplinary systems and empower not only software engineers but also experts from various scientific and engineering domains to cooperate consistently in building their solutions.

Do you trust the software you depend on in your daily life? Did accountable Software Engineers build it?

Software is everywhere and we depend on it to manage our savings, our credit cards, our wages, our taxes, our health information, to drive our car, to operate aeroplanes, to controls the air-traffic, … Who built that? Were they properly trained educated professionals, regulated, and with an adequate code of conduct?

I am concerned with Professional Identity, Ethical Standards in Informatics and I thrive for Regulation in our profession. Therefore, I am a senior member of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering and a senior member of IEEE. In both associations, I actively contribute pro-bono by taking responsibilities and several duties.

Research, Public Indexes, and Metrics

I am a senior and steering member of the Automated Software Engineering (ASE) team in the broad research Line of "Software Systems" at NOVA LINCS.

Research Topics

The current research topics and activities I'm involved in include: to derive tools & dedicated formalisms for modeling specific software-intensive domains with conceptual notations, semantically well described while dealing with families of software products. The purpose is to analyze system properties, verify, simulate, optimize, and automatically derive code from models specified by the domain experts. Currently, I am interested in the particular topic of Multi-Paradigm Modelling of Cyber-Physical Systems. Additional goal: derive a consistent, but the practical methodology for the complete DSL Engineering life-cycle.

You can find more information about my research in the usual links:

• Google Scholar
• Elsevier ISI
• Researcher ID
• DBLP
• ResearchGate
• ORCID ID
• SCOPUS
• Publons
• CienciaVitae