Manuel Castillo-Cara

Manuel Castillo-Cara is a Computer Engineer and holds a PhD in Advanced Computer Technologies from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), awarded in 2018 with the highest distinction: Cum Laude. Between 2014 and 2020, he pursued an academic career as a research professor in Peru, primarily at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI) and the Universidad de Lima (ULima). From 2021 to 2023, he held a Recualificación - María Zambrano postdoctoral contract at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), a program aimed at bringing Spanish researchers back to the country. Since 2023, he has been affiliated with the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), currently serving as a tenure-track Assistant Professor (Profesor Ayudante Doctor). He is also officially accredited as an Associate Professor (Profesor Titular) by ANECA. Throughout his teaching career, he has participated in over 15 research projects, including 7 funded by national competitive calls. He has served as Principal Investigator on 2 of these projects. Additionally, he was part of a social development initiative in Peru focused on teaching technological skills to children from underprivileged areas, reaching over 2,000 students aged 8 to 15. The training included courses in educational robotics, Scratch programming, and related fields. He has also received teaching awards, having achieved the highest scores in student evaluations at UNI in four academic years. His research interests lie in Artificial Intelligence and computing architectures, particularly in sensor networks (WSN), distributed platforms such as Fog Computing, data processing, pattern recognition, and Computer Vision. He is the lead developer of the TINTOlib library for building Hybrid Neural Networks and created the TINTO method, which transforms tabular data into synthetic images. He has delivered multiple seminars on AI and the use of TINTOlib in both Peru and Spain.