I was born and raised in Minas Gerais, Brazil. I received a B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the Federal University of Uberlândia, and in 2000 I received a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. I was a visiting researcher at the department of computer science of the University of Toronto from 1997 to 2000. Since 1999 I have been at Ryerson University, where I am now an associate professor of computer science. In 2007, I was a visiting professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea. My current research interests include evolutionary computation, and logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning.