Ana Maria Alves Coutinho Rocha

Ana Maria Alves Coutinho Rocha is an Associate Professor at the Department of Production and Systems (DPS), School of Engineering, University of Minho. She is also a Senior Researcher with PhD at Centro ALGORITMI and serves as the coordinator of the Systems Engineering and Operational Research (SEOR) research group. Her academic career spans over two decades at the University of Minho, where she has made significant contributions to both teaching and research.

Her educational background includes:

• PhD in Production and Systems Engineering from the University of Minho (2005)
• Master's degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Minho (1997)
• Degree in Systems and Computer Engineering from the University of Minho (1993)

Ana Maria's research primarily focuses on Systems Engineering, Optimization, and Operational Research. Her specific interests include Global optimization, Nonlinear optimization, and mixed-integer programming. She has made substantial contributions to developing optimization algorithms and applying them to various real-world problems including healthcare optimization, firefighting resource allocation, and additive manufacturing. Her work bridges theoretical advances in optimization with practical applications across multiple domains.

Her recent publications demonstrate a strong trend toward applying optimization techniques to healthcare systems, emergency response, and educational technologies. She has published extensively on multi-objective clustering algorithms, firefighting resource optimization, and home healthcare management. Her work increasingly integrates machine learning with traditional optimization methods, reflecting the evolving landscape of computational intelligence.

Her scientific achievements have been recognized with prestigious awards:

• Honorable Mention for the Isabel Themido Prize (2015)
• Isabel Themido Prize (2017)

Ana Maria has supervised or co-supervised 4 doctoral theses and currently has 2 doctoral students in progress. She is also supervising 1 post-doctoral student and has guided numerous master's students in data analysis and optimization. She has participated in 6 research projects, serving as co-principal investigator for one of them, and has supervised several research grants. Her collaborative network spans over 200 researchers worldwide.

She leads the Systems Engineering and Operational Research (SEOR) research group at the ALGORITMI Research Centre, which focuses on developing advanced optimization methodologies and applying them to industrial and societal challenges. Her team works on both theoretical advances in global optimization algorithms and practical implementations in areas like healthcare, emergency management, and manufacturing.