Martin Roa Villescas

Martin Roa Villescas

Teacher & Researcher

Fontys ICT

Professional Summary

Martin Roa Villescas holds a BSc in Electronic Engineering from the National University of Colombia and an MSc in Embedded Systems from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He worked at Philips Research as an embedded software designer from 2013 to 2018. He later returned to TU/e for his doctoral research in model-based machine learning, carried out within the PhD-Teaching Assistant trajectory combining research and teaching. Since 2023, he has been working at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, where he teaches in the Information and Communication Technology program and conducts research in robotics and smart industry.

Education

PhD Machine Learning

2018-02-01
2025-12-17

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

MSc Embedded Systems

2011-09-01
2013-08-01

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

BSc Electronic Engineering

2005-08-01
2010-07-01

Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL)

Interests

Robotics Bayesian Machine Learning Embedded Systems Full-Stack Development
📚 My Research
I am a research scientist specializing in probabilistic graphical models. My work focuses on optimizing the computational performance of exact inference in discrete models. Recently, I have begun exploring the development of robots using ROS2, with applications in the context of smart industry.
Featured Publications

Probabilistic inference in the era of tensor networks and differential programming

Probabilistic inference is a fundamental task in modern machine learning. Recent advances in tensor network (TN) contraction algorithms have enabled the development of better exact …

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Martin Roa Villescas

On the Importance of the Execution Schedule for Bayesian Inference

Bayesian inference is a probabilistic approach to the problem of drawing conclusions from observed data. Its main challenge is computational, which the Bayesian community tends to …

Patrick wijnings

TensorInference: A Julia package for tensor-based probabilistic inference

Probabilistic inference is a central task in intelligent systems, enabling reasoning under uncertainty across domains such as artificial intelligence, medical diagnosis, and …

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Martin Roa Villescas

Scaling Probabilistic Inference through Message Contraction Optimization

Within the realm of probabilistic graphical models, message-passing algorithms offer a powerful framework for efficient inference. When dealing with discrete variables, these …

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Martin Roa Villescas
Recent Publications
(2025). Exact Inference Optimization in Discrete Graphical Models. Eindhoven University of Technology.
(2024). Probabilistic inference in the era of tensor networks and differential programming. In Phys. Rev. Res..
(2024). On the Importance of the Execution Schedule for Bayesian Inference. In ACM TOPML.
(2024). Pushing the Boundaries of Probabilistic Inference through Message Contraction Optimization. In Artificial Intelligence.
DOI
Talks
Probabilistic inference using contraction of tensor networks featured image

Probabilistic inference using contraction of tensor networks

TensorInference, a package for exact probabilistic inference in discrete graphical models, capitalizes on recent tensor network advancements. Its tensor-based engine features …

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Martin Roa Villescas
JunctionTrees.jl - Efficient Bayesian Inference in Discrete Graphical Models featured image

JunctionTrees.jl - Efficient Bayesian Inference in Discrete Graphical Models

JunctionTrees.jl implements the junction tree algorithm, an efficient method to perform Bayesian inference in discrete probabilistic graphical models. It exploits Julia's …

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Martin Roa Villescas