About Me

Rute C. Sofia (PhD, 2004) is the Industrial IoT Head at fortiss - the research institute of the Free State of Bavaria for software-intensive services and systems. She is also an Invited Associate Professor at Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias and an Associate Researcher at ISTAR, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.

Rute’s research career spans both industry and academia. She co-founded the ULHT COPELABS research unit and served as its Scientific Director from 2013 to 2017, where she was a Senior Researcher between 2010 and 2019. She also co-founded the Portuguese startup Senception Lda (2013–2019), focused on personal communication platforms.

Her research interests include network architectures and protocols, the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, in-network computing, and network mining. Rute has authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications in her fields of expertise and holds 9 patents. She is a Datacom Industry Association board member, and a member of the IEEE WIE Industry Experts Network (2025–). She was an ACM Europe Councilor (2021–2025) and served as IEEE ComSoc N2Women Awards co-chair (2020–2021). She is also an ACM Senior Member and an IEEE Senior Member. 

Prior to joining fortiss, she was an Associate Professor at COPELABS/ULHT, focusing on wireless and user-centric networking, sensing, and IoT. Earlier, she co-led the “Internet Architectures and Networking” area at UTM, INESC-TEC (2007–2010), concentrating on wireless/cellular architectures and user-centric networking. Between 2004 and 2007, she was a Senior Research Scientist at Siemens AG and Nokia-Siemens Networks GmbH, working on fixed-mobile convergence, carrier-grade Ethernet, QoS, and IPv6 interoperability.

Rute holds a BEng in Informatics Engineering from Universidade de Coimbra (1995), as well as an MSc (1999) and a PhD (2004, Summa Cum Laude) in Informatics from Universidade de Lisboa. During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting scholar (2000–2003) at Northwestern University (ICAIR) and at the University of Pennsylvania (MNLab), under the supervision of Roch Guerin. .

Technical Skills:

My background combines deep technical expertise with hands-on leadership across both industry and academia, with a core focus on networking architectures and protocols, packet-based networking. I bring extensive experience across wireless, cellular, and fixed networks, together with a strong understanding of how technologies move from research to market through innovation cycles, standardization, and technology transfer.

As Founder and CEO of Senception (Winner of the European Awards One to Watch 2018) I led product development from concept to delivery, built and managed multidisciplinary teams, and drove innovation with a strong focus on real-world deployment and customer value. In parallel, as Scientific Coordinator and later Director of COPELABS, I managed large-scale research and innovation activities, established teams and infrastructures from scratch, and guided projects from early ideation through proof-of-concept to technology transfer.

Beyond operational roles, I actively contribute to strategic ecosystem development through my involvement in AIOTI (co-chair of the Working Group Testbeds 2022-2023; co-chair of the Working group Energy 2025-2026), CONASENSE (Steering Board and Coordinator), ACM Europe Councilor 2021-2025, and a member of the Board of the Datacom Industry Association (2025-2026). In these contexts, I support agenda setting, cross-sector collaboration, and alignment between research, industry, and policy, helping shape roadmaps for next-generation data communications and IoT.