On November 23rd, as part of the New Masters 2024 Celebration, Nuno Ricardo Teixeira da Costa, a recent graduate of the Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering (M.EIC), took the stage to receive the *Vestas Award, a cash prize of 2,500 euros, which rewards the best dissertations according to criteria of innovation, applicability and positive cost-benefit ratio for Vestas, a world leader in the renewable energy sector for sustainable energy solutions.
Nuno developed the thesis entitled “Leveraging Physics-Informed Neural Architectures as Surrogate Models for Space Weather Forecasting”, which addresses the limitations of current magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation tools, which, while effective, face challenges in computational efficiency and predictive accuracy. To overcome these limitations, this research explores the use of advanced machine learning techniques, specifically Physics-Informed Neural Architectures such as Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PiNNs) and Physics-Informed Neural Operators (PiNOs), for creating surrogate models of the most advanced and expensive wind simulators, that balance computational speed and physical accuracy.
This research, which received a grade of 20/20, was supervised by Professor André Restivo (DEI) and co-supervised by the doctoral student Filipa Barros (FCUP), about whom he says: “I’m very grateful to them for supporting me throughout this journey; we’ve demonstrated the power of this approach, with our surrogate models already being used in operational environments!
Nuno ends his academic career at FEUP as he began it, with distinction, when at the end of his first year he was awarded the “Incentive Prize of the University of Porto”, given to students who finish their first year with the best marks.
But his career wasn’t all about studying. Nuno was an active member of the NIAEFEUP and JuniFEUP student groups, where he had the opportunity to develop extra-curricular activities that contributed to his development, and was a monitor in four curricular units over two years.
*The prize is awarded annually to a graduate of FEUP’s Masters in Electrical and Computing Engineering (M.EEC), Masters in Informatics and Computing Engineering (M.EIC) and Masters in Mechanical Engineering (M.EM), whose final course average and Master’s thesis classification are not lower than 16 and 18 points respectively for the M.EEC and M.EIC, and 15 and 18 points for the M.EM. + info