Francisco Pena Escobar

I am an assistant professor at the School of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health at KTH. My expertise is computer vision and unsupervised machine learning which I apply in diverse contexts ranging from digital pathology to remote sensing.

Previously I have held postdoctoral positions at Karolinska Institute, Stockholm University, KTH and University Colege Dublin. I have a PhD in Computer Science from University College Cork, a MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the Technical University of Madrid, and a Software Engineering Degree from Universidad del Valle.

When I am not in the lab you can find me on the tennis courts or at the BBQ grill.

Learning Beyond Supervision Lab

I am the head of the Learning Beyond Supervision Lab which is dedicated to advancing AI with four guiding principles:

1. Unlabeled Data Only: We train our models exclusively on unlabeled data. Annotated datasets are never used for training—only for fine-tuning or evaluation.
2. Real-World Focus: We prioritize real-world data and challenges, rather than optimizing performance on artificial benchmarks like ImageNet.
3. Collaborative Research: We never work alone. All our projects involve external partners to ensure our research addresses real needs and delivers direct impact.
4. Domain-Driven Design: We don’t just apply existing models—we create new ones. Our research focuses on designing methods that integrate domain knowledge and are uniquely suited to each challenge.

Research interests

• Unsupervised learning.
• Computer vision.
• Digital pathology.
• Self-supervised learning.
• Remote sensing.
• Machine learning.