[2][6] Manuela Veloso received her Licenciatura and Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Lisbon's Instituto Superior Técnico in 1980 and 1984 respectively.

Her thesis Learning by Analogical Reasoning in General Purpose Problem Solving was supervised by Jaime Carbonell.

[3] Shortly after receiving her Ph.D., Manuela Veloso joined the faculty of the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science as an assistant professor.

[9] Veloso describes her research goals as the "effective construction of autonomous agents where cognition, perception, and action are combined to address planning, execution, and learning tasks".

[11] In a November 2016 interview, Veloso discussed the ethical responsibility inherent in developing autonomous systems, and expressed her optimism that the technology would be put to use for the good of humankind.