Dr. Garcia holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (2004). He was an Assistant Professor at Lancaster University (England) from February 2005 to January 2009 and served as a member of the Editorial Board of two major international journals in his area: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and Journal of Systems and Software. Professor Garcia has been frequently invited to the Program Committees and/or Organization Committees of the major international Software Engineering conferences and related areas such as ICSE, FSE, ICSME, MODELS, ICPC, ESEM, and several others. He has also received several awards and distinctions, such as Best Master's Dissertation of 2000

(Sociedade Brasileira de Computação / Brazilian Computing Society ), Researcher of the Year (Lancaster University, 2006), Young Scientist of Our State (FAPERJ, 2009 and 2013), Scientist of Our State (FAPERJ, 2016) and Affiliate Member of the Academia Brasileira de Ciências / Brazilian Society of Science (ABC, 2009 to 2014). Several of his papers have received distinctions at major international conferences , such as the "ACM Distinguished Paper Award" of ICSE 2014. Professor Garcia has several partnerships with other international research groups in the USA, England, Germany and Argentina. His research projects are funded by funding agencies -- CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ and Newton Fund -- and partners in the software industry.