Portuguese Carnegie Mellon University professor of computer science Manuela Veloso is known for her contributions to the development of cognition, perception and action in autonomous robot teams.  She has studied how autonomous agents can work cooperatively in complex environments and has pioneered work on robotic soccer playing.

Most recently Manuela Veloso has developed the CoBo – for Companion Robots – a self-navigating robot that can adapt to human availability and new environments and perform personal assistance needs.

The CoBo prototypes ask for help from humans when they decide that they need help. They navigate using multi-modal sensory information, including WiFi vision and laser data and can serve as a guide for visitors and provide mobile telepresence.

Manuela Veloso is the president-elect of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). She received the 2009 Autonomous Agents Research Award from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence. She is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Career Award and the university’s Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research.

Manuela Veloso did her undergraduate studies at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal. She attended Boston University where she received a Masters in Computer Science.  She received her doctor’s degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 1992.

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