> whoami

One of my favourite photos of myself, at my graduation day, as photographed by my best friend Catarina © Catarina Carvalho Maia, 2026

I am a 23 year old Electrical and Computer Eng. PhD student at Instituto Superior Técnico - ULisboa , with a knack for all things FPGA, embedded systems and reconfigurable computing. I am also a early-stage researcher at INESC-ID and INESC-INOVLabs.

I was born in Lisbon, Portugal on the 16th of September.

My family is originally from Arraiolos, in Alentejo Central (mother’s side) and from Lisbon and Portalegre, Alto Alentejo (father’s side).

I finished my ECE Master’s in November 2025, having majored in Computer Systems and minored in Electronic Circuits and Systems. My Thesis was on ARES, A Hardware/Software System for Embedded deployment of Transformers. I was supervised by Prof. Horácio Neto and Prof. Mário Véstias, also my PhD Supervisors together with Prof. José T. de Sousa.

From November 2023 to July 2025 I was also Teaching Assistant at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, having received the Excellence in Teaching award for both school years.

Obligatory analog mirror selfie, in Castro Verde

I have also been hackin’ and tinkerin’ while involved with the HackerSchool hackerspace, which I belong to since 2021.

Other than my research I am also interested in GNU/Linux, Open-Source Hardware, Right to Repair, self-hosting, homelabing and overall all that is related to Open (and opening) Computer and other Electronic Systems. I like to document my projects and shenanigans here.

> The ‘Cool’ Interests and Trivia

Apart from my electrical and computer engineering background I go to the gym and like to do some outdoor activities like camping, archery and sharpshooting. It also seemed fitting to add here that I really like dogs and I am medically alergic to cats.

My main hobby right now is analog photography, including developing, printing and sometimes a bit of camera repairing too.

I also like traveling, especially inside the portuguese territory:

Me, in the hometown of my best friend (Duarte)

Finally I am a huge nerd being really interested in History (since I was a kid), especially on pre-Roman history and the dark and medieval ages, and far away civilizations. I’m also interested in the history of philosophy and religion. While on topic - I am a roman catholic, although a flawed one.

My interest in history combines with my enjoyment of worldbuilding tomes, Tolkien-esque fantasy, historical novels (especially from national writters) and Lovercraft’s weird fiction.

I am also a big fan of Comic books, especially from european authors like E. Bilal and V. Segrelles.

To conclude: my musical tastes are pretty varied but are mainly Heavy Metal and Rock centric, or those of a divorced 40-year old dad.

And I think that’s about it, thank you for basically reading my about me. If you are curious about any specific section plese feel free to waddle around this website or contact me.