Evolution
The Graduate Program in Systems and Automation Engineering (PPGESISA) offered by Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) was recommended in 2006 (master’s) by the Advisory Technical Council (GTC) of CAPES and registered in 2007 by the National Council for Education, under the name of Graduate Program in Systems Engineering (PPGESIS). PPGESIS began its activities with a staff composed by 8 (eight) permanent professors, four of which from Department of Engineering and four of the Department of Exact Sciences and its basic acting stemmed from Modeling of Biological Systems.
The multidisciplinary formation of the professor staff enabled the development of research that involved state-of-art in technical-scientific knowledge in the fields of Engineering, mathematics, physics, computation science and similar fields aiming at evaluation, analysis and modeling of biological systems. In 2014, the program chose to focus on its activity and, thus, concentrate its research projects in the CAPES area Engineering IV which refers to Electric Engineering and Biomedical Engineering .
This changes is part of a natural evolution that a graduate program goes through, having to adapt itself to the target audience and to the new professors in the program. So, the acting in modeling biological systems stood present in the program, but in the new lines of research that clearly demonstrate the focus on fields linked to Engineering IV. This way, besides the term “Automation” in the name of the program, the current PPGESISA began to have two new lines of research:
1. Computational intelligence, modeling and systems automation
2. Digital Processing of machines signal and machines
On October 27 of 2008, the first thesis defense took place out of a total of 7 (seven) defenses that happened until February of 2009, referring to the graduates selected in the group 1/2007.
Mission
The Graduate Program in Systems Engineering at the Federal University of Lavras has as goal the formation of human resources, creating and spreading scientific and technological knowledge, involving mainly research, teaching and the development of work involving multidisciplinary and interinstitutional teams.
Goals
The General Goal of the Graduate Program in Systems Engineering consists on the formation of human resources qualified to act as professors and researchers in teaching and/or research institutions or as companies professionals capable of composing teams for the development of projects and products of high level technological and quality standards.
Specific goal: (a) expansion of knowledge acquired in undergraduate program; (b) formation of researchers with critical capacity and with ability for result divulgation of their research in various means; (c) formation of critical mass of professionals for the expansion and maintenance of the teaching body of Federal Institutions as Educational Technological Centers (Technical Education); (d) being instrument of motivation o undergraduates in engineering with interaction of students from Scientific Initiation and volunteers of the most various research developed by masters.
Target audience
Engineers, bachelors in computer science and professional of higher education in similar areas with interest in deepening their knowledge in the lines of research of the program linked to Engineers IV of CAPES.
International Partnerships
PPGESIS has been pursuing to motivate interinstitutional cooperations, either national or international. In this context, professors have been seeking the integration with other institutions in the sense of enhancing research, teaching and extension. The central administration of UFLA has been motivating such actions in the sense of achieving greater access to society and of obtaining higher levels of internationalization. Among the many partnerships involving professors and students of this Program, we may mention:
1. Agreement of mutual partnership between DEG/UFLA with Universidad Nacional de La Plata since 2006 and visit to the Faculdad de Ingenieria of UNLP/Argentine in 2008 with the objective of deepening the relation and of programming student exchanging from the graduate program to take disciplines in graduate programs of that university.
2. Agreement on Technical-Scientific Partnership between UFLA-CIOp (Centro de Investigaciones Opticas – La Plata, Argentine). Agreed in 1997, this agreement had as the most recent result the publication of the book Dynamic Speckler Laser and Applications, published by the Taylor & Francis USA editor and relied on the participation of two professors from PPGESIS (Prof. Roberto Alves Braga Júnior and Prof. Giovanni Francisco Rabelo).
3. Participation of professors of the program in boards for professors hiring and course conclusion at many institutions, at external entities (CREA), etc.
4. The constant motivation for post-doctoring of professors from the program, as well as the motivation for students and professors from the program to participate in congresses and to hold technical visits abroad aiming at updating and seeking for new partnerships.
The program relies, for example, on one permanent professor who is linked to the National University of La Plata in Argentine.