Biography

Heydi Méndez-Vázquez is the Research Director of the Advanced Technologies Application Center (CENATAV), in Cuba. She was graduated in Informatics Engineering (with Honors) in 2005 and received the Ph.D. in Automatic and Computing in 2011, both from the Havana University of Technologies José Antonio Echeverría (CUJAE), Cuba. Since 2005, she has been with the Biometrics Research Group of CENATAV. Her research interests include Computer Vision, Biometrics, Face Recognition and Digital Image Processing.

She has published more than 70 articles about the development of new methods for automatic face recognition and has presented more than 20 oral and poster presentations on conferences and scientific meetings. She has collaborated with several international researchers and have participated in IDENTITY and ESPERANTO Horizon 2020 International Projects. She is a member of the International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPR), serving as the Editor in Chief of the IAPR newsletter, since 2023. She received a best student paper award in the 5th International Summer School on Biometrics endorsed by the IAPR, in Alghero, Italy, 2008. She has been awarded with three Annual Prizes given by the Cuban Academy of Sciences (2011, 2018, 2023) and with the National Innovation Award of Cuba in 2019. She was also awarded with one of the TWAS 2012 Prize for Young Scientists from Cuba. In 2015 she received the Aurora Pons Porrata Award given to women researchers by the Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition and in 2023, she received the Carlos J. Finlay Order, which the highest scientific recognition in Cuba. In 2024 she was elected as a Member of the Cuban Academy of Sciences.