About Me

I am an assistant researcher at INESC-ID and a soon-to-be visiting student at the Psychology Department and Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. My work lies at the intersection of neuroscience and computer vision, where I use spatial frequency constraints derived from fMRI data to regularize computer vision models.

Previously, I was a master’s student in Computer Science and Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in the University of Lisbon, where I specialized in Artificial Intelligence. My thesis focused on developing a subcortical module for visual processing to improve model robustness to image perturbations while mirroring cortical representations.

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Work Experience

Visiting Student @ Carnegie Mellon University
(Nov. 2025 - Dec. 2025)

Using spatial frequency tuning profiles from fMRI data to regularize early representations of computer vision models.

Research Assistant @ INESC-ID
(June 2024 - Oct. 2025)

Improving standard backbone CNN architectures with biologically inspired front-end modules to improve brain alignemnt and robustness against image corruptions, distribution shifts and adversarial attacks.

Education

M.S., Computer Science and Engineering @ IST ULisboa, GPA: 19/20
(Oct. 2021 - Nov. 2024)

Specialization in Artificial Intelligence and Interaction & Visualization
Thesis: “Using Biological Features of Improve Deep Neural Network Models for Vision” (Grade: 20/20)

Erasmus Semester @ University of Amsterdam, GPA: 8/10
(Aug. 2022 - Jan. 2023)

B.S., Mechanical Engineering @ IST ULisboa, GPA: 16/20
(Sep. 2018 - Aug. 2021)

Projects

Explicitly Modeling Subcortical Vision with a Neuro-Inspired Front-End Improves CNN Robustness
Website (TBA) Paper Code

Publications

Piper, L.; Oliveira, A. L.; and Marques, T. “Explicitly Modeling Subcortical Vision with a Neuro-Inspired Front-End Improves CNN Robustness” (2025). NeurIPS 2025 Link