About Me

Hello! I'm a Ph.D. student in Computer Engineering at Northeastern University, advised by Prof. Pau Closas.

My research focuses on statistical machine learning together with federated learning to develop privacy-preserving, uncertainty-aware, and personalized models across heterogeneous clients, with current work on personalization through clustered federated learning. I also apply these methods to interference localization in GNSS.

I hold dual Bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from CFIS, a selective high-performance program at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), where I built a strong foundation in probability theory, statistical modeling, optimization, and deep learning.

Announcements

Sep. 2025: Submitted three papers to ICASSP 2026.
Jun. 2025: Attended the Y Combinator Startup School event in San Francisco.
Apr. 2025: I am presenting my work "Jammer Source Localization with Federated Learning" at the IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS) in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Mar. 2025: Selected among the Top 10 Computer Science students under 25 in Spain by Nova Talent.
Nov. 2024: Awarded Best Bachelor's Thesis Prize out of 300+ students at the Faculty of Informatics of Barcelona (FIB), UPC.
Sep. 2024: I have started my Ph.D. journey in Computer Engineering at Northeastern University, advised by Prof. Pau Closas. My M.S. concentration is in Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and Algorithms.

Papers

Preprints

DPMM-CFL: Clustered Federated Learning via Dirichlet Process Mixture Model Nonparametric Clustering
Mariona Jaramillo-Civill, Peng Wu, Pau Closas.
Under review, submitted to IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2026.
[arXiv]

Bayesian Jammer Localization using Log-linear Mixture of Experts with CNN and Pathloss Models
Mariona Jaramillo-Civill, Luis González-Gudiño, Tales Imbiriba, Pau Closas.
Under review, submitted to IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2026.

Active Jammer Localization via Acquisition-Aware Path Planning
Luis González-Gudiño, Mariona Jaramillo-Civill, Pau Closas, Tales Imbiriba.
Under review, submitted to IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2026.

Trends and Challenges in Next-Generation GNSS Interference Management
Leatile Marata, Mariona Jaramillo-Civill, Tales Imbiriba, Petri Välisuo, Heidi Kuusniemi, Elena Simona Lohan, Pau Closas.
Under review, submitted to IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, 2025.

Publications

Jammer Source Localization with Federated Learning
Mariona Jaramillo-Civill, Peng Wu, Andrea Nardin, Tales Imbiriba, Pau Closas.
IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS), 2025. [Oral Presentation; Best Paper nominee]
[full paper] [conference] [code]

Research

Clustered Federated Learning (CFL) with Unknown Number of Clusters

  • Addresses client heterogeneity in federated learning via Bayesian nonparametric clustering.
  • Uses a Dirichlet Process Mixture Model (DPMM) to dynamically infer the number of clusters while training.
  • Employs restricted Gibbs sampling with split–merge proposals and weighted aggregation.
  • Achieves scalable personalization without fixing the number of clusters K in advance.

CFL DPMM Split–Merge MCMC

Bayesian, Federated, and Active Learning Approaches for Jammer Localization

  • Develops ML models for privacy-preserving GNSS jammer localization in crowdsourced environments.
  • APBM: Differentiable pathloss model + neural network, trained with FedAvg for decentralized optimization.
  • Bayesian mixtures of models: Pathloss expert combined with CNN to capture contextual effects and quantify uncertainty.
  • Active learning: Used to guide data collection toward the most informative regions.
  • Improves localization accuracy and robustness in complex multipath-affected urban settings.

APBM Prediction in Urban Scenario

Predicted jammer field and source localization in an urban scenario using the Augmented Physics-Based Model (APBM).

APBM CNN FedAvg Bayesian Mixtures Active Learning

Internships

  • ML & GNSS Engineer Intern, Albora Technologies, Barcelona, Spain (Summer 2024)
    • Developed a robust outlier detection algorithm for RTK GNSS positioning using Kalman filtering and RTKLIB, improving smartphone navigation accuracy using the Google Smartphone Decimeter Challenge dataset.
    • Contributed to the European Union’s NEUROPULS initiative focused on neuromorphic technology for jammer classification.
  • Data Analyst & Software Developer Intern, Indaru, Barcelona, Spain (Summers 2022 & 2023)
    • Designed a data-driven marketing mix modeling optimization dashboard using R and Shiny.
  • Web Developer Intern, Wikiloc Outdoor Navigation, Girona, Spain (Summer 2021)
    • Developed backend modules for personalized static maps using NodeJS and VueJS.

Awards