Dr. Abel
Pacheco Ortega

Computer Vision
Research Engineer

Abel Pacheco-Ortega

I am a committed individual with a focus on applied computer vision and machine learning. I enjoy working in multidisciplinary teams and contributing to scalable, high-quality systems.

abel.pachecoortega@outlook.com
abelpachecoortega
dougbel

Experience
Projects
Education
Publications
Teaching

Experience

Computer Vision Research Engineer January 2024 – April 2025
Beam (formerly Rovco/Vaarst)
  • Evaluated and benchmarked advanced machine learning and computer vision technologies, ensuring robustness of products in uncertain real-world conditions and its integration to the company systems.
  • Developed tools to visualize and validate calibration accuracy, improving system reliability and reducing deployment errors.
  • Benchmarked and optimized loop closure detection algorithms for Beam’s SLAM system, strengthening localization performance in challenging environments.
  • Proposed and validated a novel camera focus verification method, increasing precision in the camera assembly process and reducing hardware rework.
Key Skills: Critical Analysis, Statistical Frameworks, Loop Closure Detection, Camera Calibration, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, C++, Python
Deputy Director of Systems Development January 2017 – December 2017
National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE), México
  • Designed and implemented agile development strategies across the institute, reducing delivery cycles and improving responsiveness to policy-driven changes.
  • Built and led high-performing teams, fostering collaboration that accelerated delivery of institutional digital projects.
  • Directed national education evaluation projects, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and strengthening decision-making at the policy level.
  • Enhanced risk management frameworks, improving scalability and sustainability of digital solutions deployed nationwide.
Key Skills: Agile Frameworks, Project Management, Team Leadership, Collaboration, Risk Management, Institutional Coordination
Head of the Department of Systems Development February 2013 – December 2016
National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE), México
  • Delivered 20+ institutional and national-level digital systems, streamlining educational evaluation and management processes.
  • Managed and mentored multidisciplinary teams, enabling consistent delivery of complex software projects under tight deadlines.
  • Coordinated multiple development initiatives using agile methodologies, cutting project delays and improving transparency in progress tracking.
  • Implemented scalable technology solutions that improved institutional resource management and operational efficiency across the organisation.
Key Skills: Agile Frameworks, Project Management, Team Leadership, Collaboration, Java, PostgreSQL, Linux, Risk Management
Teaching Assistant (part-time) October 2020 - February 2024
University of Bristol, United Kingdom
  • Supported delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate courses (e.g., Image Processing, Computer Vision, C/C++ Programming), helping students strengthen core technical and problem-solving skills.
  • Delivered practical classes during the pandemic, ensuring continuity of learning through effective online teaching methods and tools.
  • Evaluated and provided detailed feedback on student projects, improving their technical understanding and ability to apply concepts in practice.
  • Assisted course instructors in curriculum delivery and student engagement, contributing to an interactive learning environment that boosted student participation and outcomes.
Key Skills: Teaching, Computer Science, Computer Vision , Curriculum Support, Communication Skills, Programming, OpenCV, Python, C++
Lecturer (part-time) January 2012 – June 2018
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • Delivered lectures in Computer Vision to postgraduate students, integrating modern techniques to strengthen theoretical and applied understanding.
  • Served as examiner on 10+ Master’s theses in Computer Vision, reviewing written work, participating in oral defences, and providing constructive feedback to enhance research quality and communication.
  • Contributed to curriculum development and coordination, updating content with advances in computer vision and machine learning.
  • Supervised and mentored students on technical projects, fostering critical thinking and improving their ability to communicate technical results through reports and presentations.
Key Skills: Teaching, Computer Vision, Academic Evaluation, Research Supervision, Algorithms, Python, C++
R&D Engineer (part-time) February 2010 – June 2014
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • Developed high- and low-level computer vision modules for a general-purpose robot, achieving real-time performance in robotics systems.
  • Designed robust visual pipelines that improved perception reliability in dynamic environments.
  • Adapted state-of-the-art algorithms for autonomous robotic tasks, enabling successful deployment in experimental robotics platforms.
  • Integrated perception modules with downstream systems, enhancing consistency and robustness of autonomous decision-making.
Key Skills: C++, 3D Vision, OpenCV, ROS, Linux, Robotics, Systems Integration

Projects

AROS: Affordance recognition with one-shot human stances
AROS is a one-shot learning method for predicting how highly-articulated human poses interact with 3D scenes. The key idea is to model human-scene interactions using only a few pose examples, without needing to retrain the model for new interactions. Given a 3D mesh of an unseen environment, AROS predicts where interactions (affordances) can occur and generates realistic 3D human poses in context.
Key Skills: Affordances, Scene understanding, 3D descriptor, human interactions, visual perception, Python
General Porpouse Service Robot (Justina)
Robot Justina is a multidisciplinary project designed to assist people in domestic environments. To achieve this, it uses advanced technologies such as speech recognition, computer vision, autonomous navigation, and object manipulation. I contributed to the design, implementation, and improvement of the perception system focusing on computer vision.
Key Skills: Machine learning, Computer Vision, OpenCV, C++, Service Robots, Object Recognition, ROS (Robot Operating System), Multidisciplinary Projects
Vision-Based Lane Detection for Scale Model Autonomous Cars
As part of the AutoModelCar challenge at the Robotics Mexican Tournament (TMR), which extends the Urban Mobility Visions initiative by Dr. Raúl Rojas (Freie Universität Berlin), this project focuses on developing a ROS-based visual lane detector for 1:10 scale autonomous vehicles. The system processes camera input to estimate the vehicle’s position within the lane and assist with path following.
Key Skills: Computer Vision, OpenCV, C++, ROS (Robot Operating System), Autonomous driving

Education

PhD (Computer Science) 2018 – 2023
University of Bristol
Developed methods for visual affordance recognition by combining 3D geometry with generative models to model human-environment interactions. Focused on one-shot learning using variational techniques. Conducted large-scale distributed evaluations using MPI on high-performance computing infrastructure.
Key Skills: Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Statistics, Data Analysis, Scientific Writing, Collegiality, Scene understanding, 3D features, Distributed Systems, Message Passing Interface (MPI), CVAE, AWS (S3, Mechanical Turk)
Master in Engineering (Computing) 2009 – 2011
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Implemented a visual place recognition and topological mapping system using RGB-D data. Created a custom feature detector (FAST+3D) and a viewpoint-invariant descriptor, integrated into a robot localization framework for indoor navigation.
Key Skills: 3D vision, RGB-D, Feature description, Feature detection, Visual SLAM, Mobile robotics, Robot localization
Bachelor of Computer Engineering 2009 – 2011
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Designed and developed an information system to automate the planning and management of engineering field trips. The system streamlined authorisation and reporting processes for over 6,000 students per year, improving efficiency and access to real-time data.
Key Skills: Systems development, Process automation, Database design, Web technologies, Information systems, Software engineering

Publications

Pacheco-Ortega, A., & Mayol-Cuevas, W. (2023). AROS: Affordance recognition with one-shot human stances. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 10, 1076780. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1076780
Sarmiento, C., Savage, J., Juarez, A., Contreras, L., Pacheco, A., & Matamoros, M. (2019, April). Feature detection using Hidden Markov Models for 3D-visual recognition. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC) (pp. 1–6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARSC.2019.8733651
Pacheco, A., Estrada, H., Vázquez, E., Martell, R., Hernández, J., Cruz, J., Silva, E., Savage, J., & Contreras, L. (2018). Intelligent flat-and-textureless object manipulation in service robots. In IROS 2018 Workshop: Towards Robots that Exhibit Manipulation Intelligence, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, Spain. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1809.03210
Savage, J., Contreras, L., Figueroa, I., Pacheco, A., Bermudez, A., Negrete, M., & Rivera, C. (2016). Construction of roadmaps for mobile robots’ navigation using RGB-D cameras. In Intelligent Autonomous Systems 13: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference IAS-13 (pp. 217–229). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08338-4_17
Contreras, L. A., Pacheco-Ortega, A., Figueroa, J. I., Mayol-Cuevas, W. W., & Savage, J. (2013, November). Object detection via receptive field co-occurrence and spatial cloud-point data. In 2013 16th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR) (pp. 1–8). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAR.2013.6766575
Figueroa, J., Contreras, L., Pacheco, A., & Savage, J. (2012). Development of an object recognition and location system using the Microsoft Kinect™ sensor. In T. Röfer, N. M. Mayer, J. Savage, & U. Saranlı (Eds.), RoboCup 2011: Robot Soccer World Cup XV (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 7416, pp. 321–328). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32060-6_37

Teaching

Lecturer
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Postgraduate Program in Engineering
Computer Vision
  • Teaching Block 2018-2
  • Teaching Block 2012-2
Postgraduate Program in Computer Science and Engineering
Computer Vision
  • Teaching Block 2017-1
  • Teaching Block 2015-2
  • Teaching Block 2015-1
  • Teaching Block 2014-2
  • Teaching Block 2013-2
Teacher Assistant
University of Bristol
Department of Engineering Mathematics
Image Processing and Computer Vision
  • 2020-2021 Teaching Block 1
  • 2021-2022 Teaching Block 1
  • 2022-2023 Teaching Block 1
  • 2023-2024 Teaching Block 1
Programming in C
  • 2022-2023 Teaching Block 1
  • 2023-2024 Teaching Block 1
Object Oriented Programming
  • 2021-2022 Teaching Block 2
  • 2022-2023 Teaching Block 2
Introduction to Computer Programming
  • 2020-2021 Teaching Block 1
  • 2022-2023 Teaching Block 1
Further Computer Programming
  • 2020-2021 Teaching Block 2
  • 2021-2022 Teaching Block 2
  • 2022-2023 Teaching Block 2