Dr. Luis Antunes holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of Lisbon (2001). He has been a researcher in Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems since 1988, has participated in several research projects, and published more than 45 refereed scientific papers. After other teaching and research positions, he is now an Auxiliary Professor in Department of Informatics of the Faculty of Sciences of University of Lisbon, where he was until recently Vice-Head of Department. His long-term research goals deal with the construction of a methodology for principled experimentation with self-motivated agents in complex dynamic contexts. He recently founded the Group of Studies in Social Simulation (GUESS), a multi-disciplinary research group within the Institute for Science of Complexity (ICC), involving

16 (of which 7 PhDs) scientists, researchers and students from computer and social sciences. Within GUESS, he is conducting research projects involving multi-agent-based simulation applied to tax compliance, greenhouse gases emission, as well as policy rehearsal. 

Other projects involve the development of a methodology for agent- based social simulation, including the technique of iterative deepening of series of models, and permeability between contexts in multiple social networks.

During 2007 he was the Visiting International Fellow of the Institute of Social Research of the University of Surrey (Guildford), and visiting researcher at the Center for Social Complexity of University Geroge Mason, in Fairfax, Virginia. Luis Antunes is on the Program Committee of some of the most important international conferences on Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Systems and Social Simulation, such as ECAI, AAMAS, ESSA, WCSS and MABS. He was co-chair of the international workshops MABS'05, MABS'06, MABS'07 on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, and co-editor of the Springer-Verlag proceedings volumes. 

He is now a member of MABS Steering Committee, of EUMAS Advisory Board, and has hosted EUMAS 2006, AAMAS 2008 and will host ECAI 2010 as local organisation co-chair.

Luis Antunes also has a secondary career as food and wine writer, on a national and international level. He publishes regularly with Revista de Vinhos and Wine Business International, and occasionally on newspapers Expresso and Público.

-- In the ESSA Management Committee, I hope to contribute to the dissemination of Social Simulation at a European level, with policy- makers and funding agencies, as well as to the strengthening of the association cohesion and span of interests. Due to my background, I hope to serve as yet another link with the computer science and multi- agent systems community, which have been and are keystones of our own scientific construction.