Mario Freire

Mário M. Freire is a full professor of Computer Science at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Covilhã, Portugal, which he joined in October 1994, and is an integrated researcher of the NOVA Laboratory for Computer Science and Informatics (NOVA LINCS). Mário Freire completed his high school education at the José Falcão High School in Coimbra, Portugal, in 1987, and received a 5-year Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1992 and a Master of Science degree in Systems and Automation in 1994, both from the University of Coimbra. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Electrical Engineering from UBI in 2000 and a Habilitation title in Computer Science from UBI in 2007. He started his research activities in October 1991 at the University of Coimbra, where he worked on the European project EEC RACE 2011: (HD)TV Transport on Very High Bitrate Optical Links (TRAVEL), under which he carried out a one-month internship, in April 1993, at the ALCATEL SEL AG (now Nokia Networks) Research Center in Stuttgart, Germany. He was a Master's Fellow at JNICT (National Board of Scientific and Technological Research), the predecessor of the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT), under the CIÊNCIA Program, between 1992 and 1994. He took a sabbatical leave between 1997 and 2000 to carry out his PhD research work at the Instituto de Telecomunicações in Coimbra. Between 2003 and 2010, he collaborated with the Research Center of Siemens - Information and Communication/Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN Portugal SA)/Nokia Networks and, between 2007 and 2012, also with Siemens SA Healthcare Sector, having supervised 4 PhD students at Siemens/NSN with FCT doctoral scholarships in enterprise, and having been co-author of 6 international patents and PI of a research project at UBI funded by NSN. Between 2007 and 2011 he collaborated with Microsoft Portugal, having been Co-PI of a research project at UBI funded by Microsoft Europe. Between 2019 and 2022 he led a WP of a research project at UBI funded by CENTRO 2020 to create a Cloud Computing Competence Center. He has been a Central Region Cybersecurity Competence Center member since July 2024. His research interests focus on computer systems and networks and include virtualization of systems and networks, cloud and edge computing, security and privacy in systems and networks, and AI applications in computer systems and networks. As a result of about 20 research and development projects, including projects with industry, he has advised one post-doctoral researcher, 9 PhD students, and co-advised one PhD student, is the editor of 8 books published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science series, and has co-authored more than 130 scientific papers in international scientific journals and at international conferences. He is a member of the editorial board of ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review, is an associate editor of Security and Privacy Journal (Wiley) and of International Journal of Communication Systems (Wiley), and was an editor of IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials between 2007 and 2011. He was or is a member of the program committee of several IEEE international conferences and is Chair of the Track on Computer Networking at the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2025), having received a Certificate of Appreciation from ACM for organizing this track for 18+ years. He served as jury member and thesis rapporteur for more than 50 PhD theses (mainly outside UBI) and more than 25 Dr. Habilitation titles (mainly outside UBI). Mário Freire served as Vice-Rector of UBI for the Area of Faculty Applications and Academic Acts from 2020 to 2021. Additionally, he has been and is currently President of the Faculty of Engineering at UBI for 2009-2013, 2013-2017, and 2021-2025. Between 2009 and 2013, he served as Director of the IT Center (now IT Services) at UBI. He was also Head of the Department of Computer Science at UBI for the 2004-2006 and 2006-2009 terms. He is a Chartered Computer Science Engineer from the Portuguese Engineering Association, a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), USA, and its IEEE Computer Society, and a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), USA.