Full Professor, Department of Computer Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon. Coordinator, GAIPS - Intelligent Agents and Synthetic Characters Group, INESC-ID. Main research interests are in the fields of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, affective computing and human-robot interaction. Recognized for contributions in the areas of virtual agents, multi-agent systems and affective computing. Member, IFAAMA S Board of Directors. Has been involved in the organization of 15 international events, including the ACM Intelligent User Interfaces Conference IUI in 2000, the 2nd International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction in 2007, and in 2008 as local Chair, AAMAS (the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems). Main goal focuses on the research of techniques that make the creation of agent-based complex systems possible (be they virtual or robotic), in particular, systems that can establish natural interactions with users in a natural way.