Professor Ana Lilia Laureano Cruces was born in Mexico City. She obtained a degree in Civil Engineering with a specialization in structures from the School of Engineering, Unviersidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y Sistemas of UNAM and a Ph.D. in Science from the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, UNAM.

She joined the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) in September 1987, where she is currently a Professor in the Systems Department. She is a member of the National System of Researchers (Level II). She has published more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed international journals and more than 50 articles in national and international conferences proceedings.

She has taught more than 60 subjects at the undergraduate level and more than 20 subjects at the graduate level and currently participates as a Professor in the Graduate Program in Computer Science and Engineering of the UNAM in the area of Artificial Intelligence and the Information Visualization of the Division of Sciences and Arts for Design of the UAM Azcapotzalco Campus. She has actively participated in the assessment of terminal projects at UAM and Master Thesis at UAM Azcapotzalco Campus and UNAM.

She has also been responsible for research projects funded by external organizations, CONACyT and UAM. Between 1998 and 2000, she was a visiting researcher at the Systems Department of the Institute of Industrial Automatics of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid - SPAIN. Between September 2011- April 2013 on sabbatical research period as a visiting professor at the `Laboratoire d'Informatique, Université d'Avignon et des Pays Vaucluse' in FRANCE. Her research work focused on artificial consciousness, from an emotion perspective.

Her main research interests are: expert systems and intelligent systems applied to the teaching-learning process; affective computing (cognitive emotions); reactive agents; pedagogical agents; multi-agent architectures; behavioral analysis; adaptive control; cognitive engineering; knowledge representation; artificial consciousness; intelligent interfaces.