Introducing the 2019 Astronaut Health Team
Researcher: David Belo
David Belo was born in Lisbon, Portugal on October 1, 1983. He received a Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering at University of Minho in 2007.
After graduating he developed proficiency in programming while working in I.T. After a year he desired to come back to Biomedical Engineering and stated a PhD in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) at Instituto Superior do Técnico (IST) where he matured his knowledge in biosignal processing and machine learning.
He also not only gave classes in Physics, Computing and Mathematics in both University and High School he also worked in programming during his PhD. Due to lack of financial aid he had to abandon his PhD.
Later he joined LIBPHYS-UNL at NOVA University of Lisbon to research Deep Learning architectures to implement on biosignal processing and decision. Nowadays he is a PhD student specialist in developing these architectures in the field of Biomedical Engineering.
He cares a great deal about self-development because he truly believes that solving his own issues teaches him how to help others. He cares about both body and mind. As a hobby he likes gaming, meditation and fitness.
Researcher: Krittika D’Silva
Krittika is a Gates scholar and PhD student at the University of Cambridge studying Computer Science. Her research focuses on harnessing traditional machine learning algorithms to reveal properties of cities worldwide. Broadly, this work encompasses analyses of human mobility patterns, population distributions, and urban spatial structure.
Previously, Krittika has interned at Microsoft Research and Google. In the summer of 2018, she worked at the United Nations Pulse Lab in Jakarta, Indonesia, an innovation lab formed within the United Nations to harness data science insights for policy. She modeled the impact of natural disasters in the South Pacific to support future disaster relief efforts.
Researcher: Brian Wang
I spent most of my life in cold areas - I grew up in Ontario, Canada as well as Michigan. I moved to Los Angeles, California for my PhD, where I am currently blessed to experience warm weather all the time. I’m currently working in the field of AI in Computer Science, although most of my projects thus far involve applied AI. I’ve worked a bit with mobile sensing for tracking user behaviors using smartphones in order to analyze mental health risks.
I enjoy playing the piano and occasionally work with audio production software. In particular, I enjoy using orchestral virtual instruments: strings, choirs, etc. As for music preferences, I generally listen to everything, although a majority of my playlists consists of EDM featuring saxophones, ambient post rock, and Hans Zimmer-esque orchestral pieces. I also like reading - my preferred genre is science fiction and dystopias, or novels that pose interesting moral dilemmas. Currently I’m reading a book called Beyond Earth, which discusses current technology involved in space travel and colonization, challenges for the future, as well as interesting snippets of fiction written about the future of our planet. I also watch a fair amount of Netflix and HBO, usually the popular shows such as Love Death & Robots, Sense8, Westworld, etc. Some of my random skills/abilities include sleeping for more than 10 hours, a mild obsession with cleanliness, and giving great or terrible life advice.