Dr Rafael Cardoso

Biography

I have been a Lecturer in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen since January 2022. I am affiliated with the Agents at Aberdeen (A³) research theme.

My main research interests are multi-agent systems, multi-agent planning, neuro-symbolic AI, dual-process theory, and formal verification. I apply my research to a wide variety of application domains, with a particular interest in robotic systems and autonomous vehicles.

Prizes and Awards

• AAMAS 2026 Distinguished Senior Program Committee.
• ECAI 2025 Outstanding Program Committee member award.
• Active participant of the multi-agent programming contest (1^st place in 2016, 4^th place in 2017, 2^nd place in 2018, 1^st place in 2019, 2^nd place in 2020/2021).

Research Overview

My main research interests are multi-agent systems, multi-agent planning, neuro-symbolic AI, and formal verification. I apply my research to a wide variety of application domains, with a particular interest in robotic systems and self-driving vehicles.

Funding and Grants

Ongoing grants:

• 2-year networking project with PUCRS (Brazil) on “Exploring AI techniques to improve performance and reliability of appendable-block blockchains in IoT environments” with travel funding for research visits, funded by CNPq, £32k 
• 2-year networking project with UTFPR (Brazil) on “Engineering Neuro-Symbolic Agents” with travel funding for research visits, funded by CNPq, £26K

Past grants:

• 15-day research visit to the University of Genoa (Italy) from the UK-Italy Trustworthy AI, Visiting Researcher Programme funded by the Alan Turing Institute, £5k
• 15-day research visit to PUCRS (Brazil) funded by CAPES - Institutional Project of Internationalization, £5k
• Scholarship from the Coimbra Group for a 6-month PhD research visit to Charles University (Czech Republic)
• Recipient of the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program for a 4-month MSc research visit to York University (Canada)