Ana Paiva is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) from the University of Lisbon and is also the Coordinator of GAIPS – “Group on Artificial Intelligence for People and Society” at INESC-ID. Her group investigates the creation of complex systems using an agent-based approach, with a special focus on social agents and robots. Her main research focuses on the problems and techniques for creating social agents that can simulate human-like behaviours, be transparent, natural and eventually, give the illusion of life. Over the years she has addressed this problem by engineering agents that exhibit specific social capabilities, including emotions, personality, culture, non-verbal behaviour, empathy, learning, collaboration, and others.

João Valente has a degree in Physics Engineering (University of Coimbra), and a PhD in Electronic and Computer Engineering (University of Minho), having spent one year at Massachusetts General Hospital (USA), through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard Medical School. Professor at the Health School of the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, his research focuses on the neuroscience of emotions applied to health, psychology and marketing. He is currently involved in three major projects: INNOACE-Inovação, MOBFOOD and AGA@4Life. Founder of Brainanswer, an online platform which allows the development of research paradigms (stimuli protocols) integrated with data collection tools (forms, bio-sensors, eye-tracking, EGG, etc.).