Rita Ferreira has joined the Center for Uncertainty Quantification in Computational Science & Engineering at KAUST. Rita is a Mathematician specializing in Asymptotic Analysis using Variational Methods aimed at Dimensional Reduction and Homogenization problems, Mean-Field Games, and Imaging.

She received her B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in Mathematics at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and her dual Ph.D. degree in Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA, and at the New University of Lisbon (UNL), Portugal, under the supervision of Prof. Irene Fonseca (CMU) and Prof. Luísa Mascarenhas (UNL). In her Ph.D. thesis she addressed two types of homogenization problems. The first one was a spectral problem in the realm of lower dimensional theories, whose physical motivation was the study of waves propagation in a domain of very small thickness and where it is introduced a very thin net of heterogeneities. The second problem concerned the study of multiscale homogenization problems with linear growth, aimed at the identification of effective energies for composite materials in the presence of fracture or cracks.

From 2011-2014, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics of the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of the New University of Lisbon, Portugal, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. In this period, she addressed problems within: a) mean-field games aimed at the study the long time convergence (trend to equilibrium problem) for finite state mean-field games; b) imaging processing; c) alternative characterizations of higher-order Sobolev spaces. Her current research activities lie in the areas of Partial Differential Equations, Calculus of Variations, and Homogenization.

Prof. Raul Tempone​​