João C. Ferreira

Assistant Professor with Habilitation, ISCTE-IUL  ·  Coordinator, Blockchain.PT Training Platform (WP9)

orcid.org/0000-0002-6662-0806  ·  ResearcherID B-5351-2009  ·  Scopus Author ID 35481887000

João C. Ferreira is Assistant Professor with Habilitation at ISCTE-IUL. He graduated in Technological Physics Engineering from the Technical University of Lisbon (UTL/IST), Portugal, received an MSc in Telecommunications and a PhD in Computer Engineering from UTL/IST, and a second PhD in Industrial Engineering (Doctoral Program for Leaders in Technological Industries, MIT Portugal) from the University of Minho. His research interests are Data Science, Text Mining, IoT, Blockchain, AI, and their application to health, energy, transportation, electric vehicles, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and sustainable mobility.

He has authored more than 250 papers in computer science and holds a national patent in edge computing for fishing-vessel monitoring. He has executed more than 40 projects (6 as Principal Investigator), delivered over 200 scientific paper reviews and more than 30 scientific project evaluations. He is IEEE CIS Chair 2016-2018, current Vice-Chair of the IEEE Blockchain Portugal and CIS Portugal chapters, and Vice-Chair of the Brussels AI and Robotics Hub. He is main organizer of international conferences including OAIR 2013 and INTSYS (2018-2022), an IEEE Senior Member since 2015, and Guest/Topic Editor for MDPI Energies, Electronics and Sensors. He was President of IEEE CIS Portugal (2017-2018) and is Industry Ambassador in Portugal for the Computational Intelligence Society and IEEE Blockchain.

He coordinates the Master in Decision Support Systems, the Professional Master for the Digitalization of Business, and Iscte's Summer School (Smart Cities) and Winter School (IoT Systems and Blockchain).

Coordination of IoT laboratory at ISCTE major achievements https://zenodo.org/records/22301608 

At Iscte, João coordinates a team of 26 researchers within Blockchain.PT — “Agenda Mobilizadora Descentralizar Portugal com Blockchain,” Portugal's national PRR (Recovery and Resilience Plan) mobilizing agenda for blockchain — where he leads Work Package 9 (WP9), the project's Training Platform, delivered by ISCTE in partnership with TICE.PT.

Under his coordination, the WP9 Training Platform (2024–2026) has delivered:

•      6 specialized hybrid courses + 1 consortium MOOC product — 39+ modules, 6 ECTS per course

•      352 certified trainees across three editions of the Blockchain Fundamentals Summer School and the wider course portfolio

•      4 autonomous MOOCs published on the NAU platform (Open edX, FCT/FCCN): Fundamentals, Advanced Networks, Cryptography (CRIPTO101) and Smart Contracts (SMARTC101)

•      End-to-end curriculum coverage: blockchain fundamentals and P2P networks, applied cryptography, consensus mechanisms (PoW, PoS, DPoS, PoA, BFT), smart contract development (Solidity, DAML, Corda, Hyperledger), interoperability and scalability, security, and blockchain governance and compliance (AML/KYC, GDPR, MiCA)

•      An integrator case study — Porto Wine Traceability — built with students as a five-exercise progressive DAML/Corda smart-contract project spanning the full supply chain, from vineyard to consumer QR/NFC verification

Blockchain.PT — WP2 (Health)

Summary of Research Work · João C. Ferreira, ISCTE-IUL / ISTAR / INESC INOV — with Hospital de Santa Maria, Lisbon

Under WP2 (Health), the team pairs blockchain (data certification, consent auditability) with AI/LLMs (prediction, entity extraction, summarization) to make clinical AI trustworthy, FHIR-interoperable and GDPR-ready — validated with real clinicians and hospital data at Hospital de Santa Maria, Lisbon.

•      Tachycardia prediction (IEEE conf., Ferreira, Rosario, Elvas, Correia): AI models (RF, XGBoost, PSO-ANN) on 512,764 patients, F1 up to 0.89; sensor data certified on blockchain with homomorphic encryption.

•      Text2FHIRwallet (journal, Ferreira, Correia): fine-tuned Portuguese biomedical LLMs (MediAlbertina F1 0.99) turn 12,651 cardiology reports into FHIR IPS bundles; 3-month pilot, 15 clinicians, 82–86% time saved.

•      Health Professional Wallet (IEEE conf., Ferreira, Elvas, Correia): companion conference paper — same NER-to-FHIR pipeline for cross-professional patient-summary access.

•      MCP-orchestrated FHIR summarization (journal, Ferreira, Maia, Correira, Vilas, Matos, Vila-Chã, Pereira): provenance-bound LLM summaries scored 4.5–4.8/5 by physicians, zero hallucinations.

•      Blockchain + Federated Learning (journal, in revision, Ferreira): consent-aware FL for multi-site LLM fine-tuning, with blockchain-logged consent/training auditability.

•      LLMs in Healthcare — governance scoping review (SAGE Digital Health, revision): PRISMA-ScR review proposing the evaluation/governance framework behind the two studies above.

João has pioneered the use of Claude (Anthropic) as a teaching and learning tool across his blockchain curricula. Students use Claude to simulate full blockchain platforms end-to-end — modelling consensus protocol behaviour and executing smart contracts — turning theoretical modules on distributed systems into hands-on, interactive labs without requiring a live network deployment.

He also coordinates an AI course unit in which Claude generates personalized exercises for each student, adapting problem sets and feedback to individual progress and turning generative AI into an active tutor within the course, rather than only a subject of study.

H2020 Infrastress, Sparta, ENSURECEC, EFFECTOR, MARISA, ANDANTE; Interreg Block4Coop, BALCAT; AIM Health; PT2020 Monitoring, Persistent Track and Multicam, and the Digital Demo; EEA Grants Fish2Fork (PI) and Social IoT (PI).