Hi, I’m Marcos Borges
Senior Research Engineer in Robotics and Computer Vision
From selling ice cream to a PhD
My professional journey began with selling ice cream in Brazil and eventually led to a PhD in France, shaped along the way by persistence, technical curiosity, failure, and a bit of luck.
I began my engineering career in 2006 with research on diamond growth and doping to enable electrical conductivity.
Since then, I have worked at the intersection of research and engineering across medical devices, satellite imaging, computer vision, sensor fusion, object tracking, machine learning, and autonomous systems.
What interests me
The part of engineering I enjoy most is solving difficult technical problems and understanding them well enough to build something that works.
My main areas of interest are:
- Autonomous Systems
- Computer Vision
- Sensor Fusion
- Kalman filtering
- Multi-Object Tracking
- Multi-Objective Optimization
- Machine learning
- Modern C, C++, and Rust
- Safety-Critical Systems
I am particularly interested in the boundary between research and engineering: taking an idea, understanding its limitations, implementing it, measuring it, and turning it into a reliable system.
What I’m working on
After more than 15 years in industry and applied research, I am now deepening my knowledge of modern C++, Rust, systems programming, algorithms, compiler technology, and safety-critical software.
I am also revisiting subjects from earlier in my career, including perception, tracking, estimation, optimization, mathematics, and some of the research I worked on previously.
I do not expect to know everything.
One reason I created this website is to make the learning process visible.
When possible, I publish implementations, experiments, and lessons from what I am studying.
Why Rust?
Most of my professional experience has been built around C, C++, Python, MATLAB, computer vision, and embedded systems.
Rust is newer territory for me.
The language is still evolving in embedded and safety-critical software, making it an interesting area to explore and contribute to. Learning it is also pushing me to better understand C/C++ interoperability and how Rust can fit into existing systems.
I am going deeper into the language and contributing where I can. Eventually, I would like to understand the compiler well enough to contribute to it too.
Beyond engineering
Outside engineering, I enjoy travelling, hiking, photography, cooking, languages, and music.
I became interested in languages when I received an invitation to come to France in 2014. I reached B1 level in French in three months, even though I could barely communicate in English at the time. Meeting my wife in 2016 gave me the motivation to improve my English and communicate more confidently, although it is still a work in progress.
Today, I speak Portuguese, French, English, Polish, and German, with varying degrees of proficiency.
I love cooking and enjoy preparing food from different cultures. Over the years, I have learned to cook Brazilian, French, Italian, and Polish food.
I used to hike around 1,000 km a year, although I still consider myself a beginner. Somewhat embarrassingly, I am still learning how to swim.
Elsewhere
Most of my work, projects, and technical writing are documented here on my website. You can also find me on LinkedIn and GitHub, and I plan to share more technical content on YouTube.
For research and engineering collaborations, or technical talks, please get in touch by email.
Words from Colleagues
It was a pleasure working with Marcos. He is organized, proactive, and skilled in computer vision. His initiative helped improve our department, and his detailed project documentation ensured effective knowledge transfer.
Gisela LechugaData Scientist, EngieMarcos Borges was a Research Engineer on my team at Aquila for two years. He worked on computer vision and deep learning projects, demonstrating strong technical expertise and leading the industrialization of the solutions.
Antonin BraunCTO, Aquila Data EnablerI am grateful for the guidance Marcos provided during my master’s thesis. He is a dedicated colleague whose expertise in object tracking was essential to my research and to the success of our highly ranked KITTI Challenge tracker.
Nicolas Franco GonzalezAI Engineer, Imperial College LondonMarcos was a very bright and highly committed graduate student who earned his Master’s degree under me. He is a centered, driven researcher who handles high pressure well, and his contributions were always on the mark.
Lamartine GuimaraesProfessor, INPE