ULusófona Wins Best Paper Award at the EVACES 2025 International Conference

The Universidade Lusófona was awarded the Best Paper Prize at the Experimental Vibration Analysis for Civil Engineering Structures (EVACES 2025) international conference, held this month at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. The event brought together over 380 delegates and featured more than 315 scientific papers.

The winning paper, titled “Stochastic transfer learning strategy for monitoring twin concrete bridges,” was led by Leonardo Ferreira from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Leonardo conducted a one-year research internship at ULusófona as part of a joint project funded by FCT-CAPES.

Initiated in 2017 under the coordination of Universidade Lusófona, this research represents one of the most comprehensive and innovative studies in the field of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) for bridges.

The project brought together a multidisciplinary international team, including collaborations with academic institutions and transport infrastructure authorities, such as the Brazilian National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT).

The study stands out for its integrated use of cutting-edge methodologies, including: Operational modal analysis, long-term structural monitoring using smartphones (App4SHM), probabilistic modeling with finite elements via bayesian inference, transfer learning strategies for cross-domain adaptation, machine learning algorithms for structural damage detection

The full version of this study was recently published in the prestigious international journal Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing (MSSP) and is available here.

This award is a significant international recognition of the excellent research developed in the field of civil engineering and intelligent infrastructure monitoring.

This work is the result of a collaborative effort between:

Universidade Lusófona – Centro Universitário Lisboa (ULusófona)
São Paulo State University (UNESP)
Federal University of Pará (UFPA)
Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)
FAPESP, CNPq, and CAPES