Filomena Maria Rocha Menezes Oliveira Soares

Filomena Maria Rocha Menezes Oliveira Soares is an Associate Professor with Habilitation at the School of Engineering, University of Minho, where she has worked since 1992 in the Industrial Electronics Department. She serves as a Senior Researcher at the Algoritmi R&D Centre, specifically within the IE R&D Group and CAR R&D Lab. Previously, she held the position of Vice-Rector for Education and Academic Mobility at the University of Minho from November 2021 until September 2024.

Her educational background includes a degree in Chemical Engineering (1986), an MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering with an Industrial Automation profile (1991), and a PhD in Chemical Engineering (1997), all from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto. Her research spans several interconnected domains focused on applying engineering principles to solve real-world problems, particularly in biomedical applications and educational technologies.

Dr. Soares' research interests center on System Modeling and Control with biomedical applications, automation systems, and rehabilitation technologies. She has pioneered work using robots and serious games to communicate with children with autism spectrum disorders, develop rehabilitation tools for motor-impaired individuals, and monitor physical activities in sports like Taekwondo. Her educational research focuses on innovative teaching methodologies, including blended learning and virtual/remote laboratories. With an h-index of 24 and 311 publications, her work shows consistent output across journals and conferences, demonstrating increasing focus on assistive technologies, rehabilitation engineering, and educational innovations in recent years.

She has held significant leadership roles in professional organizations, including co-founding and chairing the IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity Group, serving as President of the Portuguese Association of Automatic Control (2017-2018), and leading the Portuguese Society for Engineering Education (2020-2022). She also participates in IFAC Technical Committees for Control Education and Linear Control Systems.

Dr. Soares has supervised multiple Master's and PhD students, with Jorge Manuel Almeida Brandão being one documented advisee. Her laboratory work primarily occurs within the CAR R&D Lab at the Algoritmi Centre, focusing on cyber-physical systems for rehabilitation, assistive technologies, and educational robotics. Current projects include robot-assisted therapy for autism, smart systems for visually impaired individuals, and performance monitoring systems for athletes.