Academic Information

Ana Garcia-Serrano (http://nlp.uned.es/~agarcia) is associate professor (since 1990) holding a PhD in Computer Science (1987 at the Facultad de Informática, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM) and Master degree on Mathematics with specialization on Computer Science (1981, 1983 at the Universidad Complutense). At 1982 she started her carrier at the Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herrico Universitatea (UPV/EHU) and after 25 years, in June 2007, she went from the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of Computer Science at the UPM to the Department of Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos (LSI) at the Superior School of Computer Sciences at the UNED (the University of Distance Learning).

Academic positions held

Through her experience and dedication she has learnt different teaching models, both in the classroom and in distance learning. She was the designer and coordinator of the PhD programs in the Department of Artificial Intelligence of the UPM (postgraduates of the 1983 plan, the 1998 plan and the 2005 plan). She was the promoter, designer and coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence at the UPM (with an Spanish award for quality). She participated in the design and implementation and was the coordinator during the first academic year of the official Master’s Degree at the Superior School of Sciences at the UNED (accredited by ANECA).

She participates regularly in projects on innovation in teaching and is a member from the beginning of the Innovation in Teaching group (GID2016-34) SALT-CG, Smart and Adaptive Learning and Teaching Group recognised by agreement with the Governing Committee of the UNED on the 28th June 2016 https://blogs.uned.es/saltcg/es/inicio/).

Her teaching activity has been incorporated into different areas undergoing continuous evolution related to the implementation of technology and services. With a theoretical - practical orientation she has created, implemented and coordinated subjects with different study plans for degrees, engineering, Undergraduate and Master’s Degrees in Computer Sciences. She has published notebooks, translations and several books for the students in their subjects and since 2007 she has used the methodology and the resources of distance education of the UNED, such as forums, knowledge pills on video or webinars (conferences or virtual workgroup).

She maintains the training activities of the students constantly with the management of Master’s and PhD Degrees, in their areas of research. She has supervised eight PhD theses (one of them was awarded an extraordinary prize by the UPM) and more than 20 Master’s Degrees theses (17 of them with 30 ects in Master in research).

Research activity

The results of her theoretical-practical research have been published in both national and international forums (https://scholar.google.es/citations?hl=es&user=Y7G5f8MAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate). She has been the principal researcher in different national and international projects (http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0975-7205).

As director of the Intelligent Systems (ISYS 1999-2007) work group at the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the UPM she was the principal researcher in different projects such as that of the “MAVIR project - Improving Access, the Analysis and Visibility of Information, Multilingual and Multimedia Content On-line for the Madrid Regional Government” (S-505/TIC/0267) or in OmniPaper - Smart Access to European Newspapers (IST-2001-32174 FP5-IST).

Now at the UNED, in the “Processing of Natural Language and Recovery of Information (NLP&IR)” work group (web.nlp.uned.es) at the Superior School of Computer Sciences, she has been in charge of the BUSCAMEDIA contract – “Towards a semantic adaptation of multi-network – multi-terminal digital media” (CEN-20091026). She is currently participating in research related to the technologies of language (mixed models) and projects oriented towards Digital Humanities such as the SPEKTRUM (2019-3-PL01-KA205-077866 Action 2 - strategic partnerships) project to improve access to museums for young autistic people or MUSACCES  - “Museology and social integration: the dissemination of artistic and cultural heritage of the Museo del Prado (Prado Museum) to collectives with special accessibility needs, blind and deaf people and prison inmates” (S2015/HUM3494), in the call for R&D programs in CSS and Humanities 2015. She has also collaborated in the DIMH  project – “The engineering draughtsman at the service of the Hispanic monarchy. 16th to 18th centuries ” (HAR2012-31117) (http://dimh.hypotheses.org/).

She was editor of the journal “Artificial Intelligence. A Central and South American journal in AI” in 2012-14 (http://journal.iberamia.org/ ) ISSN: 1137-3601 and a member of the editing committee 2002-11. She regularly participates in national commissions for the evaluation of research, she was assistant to the Coordinator of the area of “Sciences of Computation and Computer Technology” (2003-05) at the National Agency of Evaluation and Prospective (ANEP) and she has been an Independent expert for different commissions or European projects of the European Commission

Educational management experience

In her trajectory, she has held different academic positions in administration and management. At the UPM she was director, deputy director and secretary in the Department of Artificial Intelligence (1994-2007) and was a member of the “Postgraduate and PhD Commission” and of the “New Qualifications Commission (for the EEES)”. In the UNED, from May 2017 to December 2018 she took on the role of Vice-Rector of teaching methodology and innovation at the UNED, under the mandate of the Rectal D. A. Tiana until the end of his mandate. Since 2021 I am deputy director for Postgraduate and Life Training in the superior school os Computer Science at the UNED.