Ricardo Vilalta

Ricardo Vilalta Assistant professor, Department of Computer Science Co-director, Machine Learning and Data Mining Group As assistant professor in UH’s Department of Computer Science, Dr. Vilalta teaches basic techniques in artificial intelligence, particularly in machine learning—the study of how to build computer systems that learn from experience. He is committed to helping his students bridge the gap between computer theory and its practical application, by building systems that learn and adapt using real-world data from industry and science. As co-director of the Data Mining and Machine Learning Group (DM&MLG) at the University of Houston (UH), Ricardo Vilalta is focused on the development of data analysis techniques with applications to challenging problems in physics, geology, astronomy, environmental sciences and medicine. The group has applications in planetary science and particle physics, such as the automated analysis and characterization of Martian topography. MDr. Vilalta is a mentor to several Ph.D. and master’s students, and an organizer of and panelist at numerous technology symposiums. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, a Best Paper Award from the European Conference on Machine Learning, and an Invention Achievement Award from IBM. He holds several patents related to his research in data classification. A member of the IEEE Computer Society and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Dr. Vilalta holds both Masters and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.