Dr. José A. Mancera
PhD in Computer Science · University of Fribourg

AI that is interpretable, private, and useful.

Dr. José A. Mancera is an applied AI researcher and lecturer building decision-support systems across enterprise software, healthcare, and digital government.

Applied Data Science Researcher at Beekeeper AG, Lecturer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, and PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Fribourg. His work spans fuzzy systems, explainable recommenders, privacy-compliant user modeling, health AI, and digital ethics.

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Portrait of José A. Mancera
Zurich · LucerneSwitzerland
PhD Computer Science & AI, University of Fribourg
13 Works on ORCID, including 2 new in 2026
21 Public repositories and 31 gists on GitHub
20 yrs From telecom engineering to AI research
01 Doctoral research

PhD in Computer Science

A doctoral thesis on characterizing users of enterprise social networks without reading message content or personal identifiers, grounded in fuzzy set theory and evaluated on real platform metadata at Beekeeper AG.

PhD thesis in Computer Science · University of Fribourg

Privacy-Compliant User Characterization in Enterprise Social Networks

The thesis designs, implements, and evaluates a framework that turns raw interaction metadata into fuzzy behavioral representations and groups users into overlapping, interpretable segments. Privacy is handled by design through consent handling, pseudonymization, and generalized attributes.

The work connects the Beekeeper industry case studies (ICEDEG 2024, Knowledge 2022) with a reusable open-source Python package and an SSRN framework paper.

Framework paper (SSRN) Reference implementation
02 Education

Education & research interests

  • PhD
    PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Completed University of Fribourg
  • M.A.
    Information Management, magna cum laude University of Fribourg
  • M.Sc.
    Computer Science, magna cum laude University of Bern
  • Minor
    Space Technologies EPFL, Lausanne
  • B.Sc.
    Electronics and Communications Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico
  • Tracks
    Additional specialization Mobile Devices and Information Technology at Jönköping University; Satellite Technology and Signal Processing at Copenhagen University College of Engineering
Explainable AI Fuzzy Systems Privacy-Compliant AI Recommender Systems Health AI Generative AI Digital Ethics Data Visualization Search and Optimization Data Warehouses and Lakes Algorithms and Data Structures Hands-on AI Teaching
03 Trajectory

From electronics engineer to AI researcher

Pick a year, or scroll the diagram sideways, to follow two decades of work across telecom, space systems, data science, teaching, and doctoral research.

2026 Current focus

Doctorate, privacy-compliant AI, health AI, and digital ethics

    04 Experience

    Roles along the way

    1. 2019 – present

      Applied Data Science Researcher

      Beekeeper AG, Zurich. Applied AI, data-driven product research, and privacy-aware user characterization strategies.

    2. 2022 – present

      Lecturer

      Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Teaching AI, search and optimization, data systems, and visualization.

    3. Completed

      Doctoral researcher

      University of Fribourg. PhD in Computer Science and AI on privacy-compliant fuzzy user characterization.

    4. 2016 – 2018

      Machine learning transition

      Data Scientist at Schindler and Senior Big Data Machine Learning Scientist with the Information Systems Research Group at the University of Fribourg.

    5. 2017 – 2018

      Fintech and software delivery

      Software Engineer at CreditGate24, adding practical product and delivery experience.

    6. 2013 – 2016

      Space and software systems

      Research Assistant at the Swiss Space Center at EPFL, Software Engineer at ELCA, and Software / Space System Engineer at Swiss Space Systems.

    7. 2006 – 2013

      Telecom engineering

      Telecom Engineer Solutions at Huawei in Mexico City, then Senior Telecommunications Engineer at Nortel Networks in Montreal.

    05 Publications

    Articles & publications

    All 13 works from the public ORCID record, newest first. Filter by research theme.

      06 Code

      GitHub activity

      Recently active public repositories, plus a qualitative map of public repositories and gists by theme and year.

      Qualitative synthesis of public repositories and gists, not a raw contribution count. Hover a cell for evidence.
      07 Ecosystem

      Academic projects & activities

      SNSF project · HSLU

      SmartRehab

      Optimizing rehabilitation services through explainable recommender systems, a bridge between applied AI, health contexts, and responsible decision support. Its 2026 FUZZ-IEEE paper stratifies functional outcome and length of stay at admission with interpretable fuzzy models.

      Other public projects include the Swiss Digital Ethics Compass and work toward causal traffic predictions, from healthcare and ethics to mobility and civic technology.

      Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts logo

      Teaching, research, and public faculty profile at the Lucerne School of Business.

      Swiss Paraplegic Centre logo

      Health research partner for rehabilitation and explainable recommender systems.

      Swiss National Science Foundation logo

      National funding context for high-impact applied AI research in Switzerland.