{"id":20905,"date":"2024-12-19T12:17:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T12:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/?post_type=ac_scholars&p=20905"},"modified":"2026-06-24T12:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:16:11","slug":"isabel-ribeiro","status":"publish","type":"ac_scholars","link":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/scholars\/isabel-ribeiro\/","title":{"rendered":"Isabel Ribeiro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isabel Ribeiro<\/strong> is Full Professor (2005) (retired, 2021) and Distinguished Professor (2018) at Instituto Superior T\u00e9cnico (IST), University of Lisbon. She received her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from IST in 1988 and her Habilitation (Agrega\u00e7\u00e3o) in Control and Robotics from the Technical University of Lisbon in 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She co-founded the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR), which includes the LARSyS Associate Laboratory (Laboratory of Robotics and Engineering Systems). She is a senior researcher there and served as President (2006\u20132007) and Vice President (2001\u20132005). Throughout her career, she has held key management and academic governance positions. At IST, she served as Vice-President of the Governing Board for four terms, as well as on the School Council and the Scientific Council. She also served as Chair of the Board of the Representatives\u2019 Assembly from 2006 to 2009. She is currently Chair of the IST Research and Teaching Evaluation Council for the 2025-2028 term. She held high-level positions in the national scientific system, serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (2016- 2017) and as an advisor to its Executive Board (2008-2011). She was Vice President of IST-ID (2012-2016) and a member of the ADIST Executive Board (2012-2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is a leading figure in mobile robotics in Portugal and is a pioneer in this field in the country, contributing decisively to its development and establishment over several decades. Her research interests include robot navigation, localization and mapping, path planning, probabilistic methods for mobile robotics, and multi-robot coordination. She is the author of one book and the author or co-author of more than 150 scientific publications. Alongside her research activities, she has been deeply committed to science communication and public engagement. Since 2004, she has regularly delivered talks in schools aimed at inspiring young people to pursue interests in science and robotics. She was an invited speaker in the \u201cAwakening to Science\u201d lecture series, jointly organized by FCT and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2004\u20132006). In 2020, she was the first speaker in the science outreach series \u201cExplain it to me as if I were five years old\u201d, launched remotely by IST during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She led, on behalf of IST, a joint project with EFACEC that developed and deployed the first Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) system installed in Portugal for the automatic transportation of materials in industrial facilities. She has served as principal investigator or member of research teams in numerous R&D projects funded by European Union Framework Programmes and national agencies, directed a project under the NATO Science for Stability Programme, and coordinated mobile robotics projects within the European Fusion Programme associated with ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). Under her leadership, an IST team developed, in 1997\u20131998, the conceptual design of the mobile robots intended to operate within the ITER Tokamak building as part of its material-handling system. This pioneering concept provided the foundation for subsequent developments and for the system currently under construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2023, she has been a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon (ACL). She is also an Advisory Member of the Portuguese Ordem dos Engenheiros and a Senior Member of the IEEE. At ACL, she has served since 2025 as the representative of the Class of Sciences on the Publications Department. She led the initiative to publish the biographical profiles of Academy members on the Academy\u2019s website and coordinated the publication of the Academy Yearbook in 2025, reviving an editorial tradition that had been discontinued since 1979. Internationally, she served as Chair of the IFAC Technical Committee on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (2005\u20132008), Co-Coordinator of the Cooperative Robotics area within EURON \u2013 the European Robotics Research Network (2002\u20132004), and member of EURON\u2019s Education Key Area (2004\u20132006).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was selected by the Portuguese National Agency Ci\u00eancia Viva as one of Portugal\u2019s \u201cWomen in Science\u201d and, in 2018, was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor by Instituto Superior T\u00e9cnico in recognition of her \u201cexceptional and pioneering contributions to advanced education and scientific leadership in the field of mobile robotics\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isabel Ribeiro is Full Professor (2005) (retired, 2021) and Distinguished Professor (2018) at Instituto Superior T\u00e9cnico (IST), University of Lisbon. She received her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from IST in 1988 and her Habilitation (Agrega\u00e7\u00e3o) in Control and Robotics from the Technical University of Lisbon in 2000. She co-founded the Institute for Systems […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":20906,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"date":["2026-06-16"],"email":"isabel.ribeiro@tecnico.ulisboa.pt","show_email":true,"interest":"rob\u00f3tica m\u00f3vel; navega\u00e7\u00e3o; planeamento de trajet\u00f3rias; perce\u00e7\u00e3o; comunica\u00e7\u00e3o de ci\u00eancia","interest_en":"mobile robotics; navigation; path planning; perception; science communication","hyperlink":"https:\/\/www.cienciavitae.pt\/\/en\/3314-1899-CDED https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6083-0290","footnotes":""},"ac_class":[119],"ac_bond":[120],"ac_section":[132],"class_list":["post-20905","ac_scholars","type-ac_scholars","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ac_class-classe-de-ciencias","ac_bond-efetivos","ac_section-8-seccao-ciencias-e-tecnologias-da-informacao"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ac_scholars\/20905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ac_scholars"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ac_scholars"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ac_scholars\/20905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28025,"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ac_scholars\/20905\/revisions\/28025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ac_class","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ac_class?post=20905"},{"taxonomy":"ac_bond","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ac_bond?post=20905"},{"taxonomy":"ac_section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acad-ciencias.pt\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ac_section?post=20905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}