Welcome, Marcelo! Meet Poatek’s new Data Scientist

Some weeks ago, we welcomed Marcelo Prates, our new Data Scientist! Marcelo and his team work on projects that help businesses interpret data effectively, extracting information for a better decision-making process.

Marcelo holds a PhD degree in Computer Science with a major in Machine Learning at UFRGS. His first experience with research was in 2012, and since then he has performed research on several topics, including human and social computing, evolutionary computation, deep learning, and the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI).

Why Artificial Intelligence?

And where did his interest in AI come from? Marcelo explains that he’s “deeply interested in how the rapid evolution of AI impacts humanity, and on what we can do to prevent harmful consequences and ensure that technology benefits the whole society”.

He’s also excited about the emerging field of Geometric Deep Learning, the study of neural networks that learn over relational data. He believes this research topic is a step towards the dream of enabling deep learning to reason over symbolic expressions – a key component of human intelligence.

Marcelo at Poatek

After many years doing research, Marcelo realized it was time for him to have a professional experience. Right now, his role at our company includes researching and developing state-of-the-art solutions with Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning to solve specific demands.

“I discovered at Poatek the perfect environment to make a transition from the university, as Poatek’s Data Scientist position requires you to stay up to date with scientific research”, Marcelo says.

As someone with a strong academic background and no prior professional experience, Marcelo was happy to find out how much the Data Scientist position at Poatek resembles his previous role as a researcher. “Reading scientific papers and being able to keep in contact with the advances of my field are pleasant surprises – not at all what I expected from a professional position. I’m really happy here”.

And we’re happy to have you on our team, Marcelo! Soon you’ll be able to read some blog posts written by him, so stay tuned!