Mário Figueiredo received his PhD (1994) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, where he is an IST Distinguished Professor. He is a senior researcher and group leader at Instituto de Telecomunicações. His research areas include machine learning, signal processing, and optimization. He received several honors and awards, namely: Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), Fellow of the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP), W. R. G. Baker Award (IEEE), member of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering, member of the Lisbon Academy of Science. From 2014 to 2018 he was included in the annual list “Highly Cited Researchers”.