Carlos Peña

Full Professor (Professeur Ordinaire)
PhD Computer Science, EPFL
Electronic Eng., Universidad Distrital, Bogotá, Colombia

Head of the Computational Intelligence for Computational Biology group  // CI4CB
Group Leader at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics // SIB

Head Biomedical Applications domain
Institute for Information and Communication Technologies // IICT
School of Business and Engineering Vaud // HEIG-VD
University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland // HES-SO

I am full professor in computer engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland at the Yverdon site (HEIG-VD). I lead the Biomedical Applications Axis at the ICT department which belongs to the Health, Engineering and Economics (HEE) group. My research team, named Computational Intelligence for Computational Biology (CI4CB), is affiliated to the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB).

My central professional interest concerns the different interfaces between life and engineering sciences. This includes mostly biologically-inspired computational techniques on the one side and bioinformatics and computational biology on the other side.

I teach biology and bioinformatics-related courses to computer and communication engineers with solid technical profile who has usually little scientific background. This is both an interesting challenge and an opportunity.

Research Interests and Expertise:
• Machine Learning and Computational Intelligence: fuzzy systems, evolutionary algorithms, neural networks
• Computational Biology and Bioinformatics: gene expression data analysis, computational biomarker discovery, biological network modelling and simulation, predictive genomics modelling
• Advanced computational techniques for optimization, modelling, and data analysis.
• Real-world applications: biology and medicine, agriculture, electronics, automation, telecommunications

Other Interests:
• R&D: Applied research and development, North-South scientific cooperation, research consortia
• Academics: Teaching and project supervision, invited lectures and conferences, academic consulting
• Systems biology, computational biology, biological network modelling, and related areas
• Scientific diaspora networks

Specialties: Computational intelligence: fuzzy systems, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms; Computational biology and bioinformatics; computational biomarker discovery; computational engineering: modelling, optimization, data analysis;

Stages as invited professor

  1. University « Autonoma de Occidente », Cali, Colombia, May 2015. Two-week stage for teaching and research activities.

  2. University « Distrital », Bogotá, Colombia, September 2010. One-week stage for teaching and research activities.