Senior Researcher at NIC.br. Previously Staff Research Scientist and Master Inventor at IBM Research. PhD and MSc in Computer Science from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in 2012 and 2009, respectively, as well as a BSc degree in Computer Science from Presbyterian University Mackenzie in 2006. Passionate about user behavior analysis, I research about how people interact with devices in real contexts of use, aiming at responsible and inclusive recommendation systems and user interface personalization.

With a professional software development background since 2000, I previously served as a webmaster at Folha de S.Paulo (www.folha.com.br), a prominent Brazilian newspaper, from 2001 to 2007. Since 2006, my research has been focused on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and its intersection with Machine Learning and Data Science. My expertise encompasses problem understanding, field studies, data-oriented evaluation, and the delivery of intelligent user interfaces.

Engaged deeply with both the Brazilian and international HCI communities, I have assumed leadership roles and served as a reviewer for numerous prestigious HCI conferences and journals. Notably, I served as the general chair of the XV Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computer Systems (IHC 2016). In 2019, I took on the role of lead program chair for the IHC 2019 conference.

I have experience in applied research across various industries, including IT services, Finance, Health Insurance, Education, Oil & Gas, Agriculture, and Responsible AI. These projects involved leading teams dedicated to user research, Data Science, and product development using agile methodologies. Over the years, I have provided ongoing mentorship to researchers in the Intellectual Property (IP) and served as an IP review board member for IBM patents. From 2021 to 2025, I was part of IBM’s Responsible Tech team, where my research was around creating tools and methods for helping teams to identify and mitigate negative societal impacts in the research and development of information technologies. In 2025, I joined NIC.br as a Senior Researcher to study about the impacts of new technologies to the Web and to influence public policies through research.

Filed and granted patents: http://bit.ly/vagnerpatents

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vagner_Santana

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=f0QLYG8AAAAJ&hl=en

Lattes Platform: http://lattes.cnpq.br/0796625901609802