Marcelo Arenas is distinguished as Fellow of the ACM - Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data

January, 2025. The Association for Computing Machinery, the most prestigious group in the area of computing and informatics worldwide, highlighted Marcelo Arenas, academic of the Department of Computer Science UC and the Institute of Mathematical and Computational Engineering UC and IMFD researcher as a Fellow of the ACM. This award recognizes the top 1% of ACM members for their contributions to computer science and technology, based on their track record, quality and the impact of their research.

"I receive this recognition very happy, very pleased, because this organization is the most important computing organization in the world, and this is the highest honor it gives to its members," says Marcelo Arenas, who receives this appointment for his important contributions in the area of the fundamentals of data management .

"Computer technology has had a tremendous impact on the way we live and work today," said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. "The ACM Fellows program honors the creativity and hard work of ACM members whose specific achievements drive innovation and make broader advances possible. By announcing a new class of Fellows each year, we celebrate the impact made by some of the pioneers in our community and highlight the many technical areas of computing in which they work." The 55 2024 selectees are outstanding ACM members whose accomplishments were selected by their peers for making possible the computing technologies we use today.

Only five Latin Americans: three are IMFD

With this recognition, Arenas becomes the third IMFD researcher to have this achievement: the first ACM Fellow from Latin America (2009) is Ricardo Baeza Yates, current Director of Research at the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University. In 2023 the recognition highlighted the career and work of Gonzalo Navarro, academic from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chile: all three are researchers at the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data, and together with Luiz Andre Barroso (2010) and Carlos de Lucena (2013), both Brazilian researchers, they are part of the select group of five Latin American scientists who have obtained it.

For Juan Reutter, Director of the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data, "This recognition undoubtedly highlights Marcelo's work, which has been crucial for the development of both the IMFD and the area at national and international level. Furthermore, the fact that three of the five Latin American researchers who have received this recognition are part of the IMFD is something that fills us with pride, and confirms the direction we have taken at the institute, always with collaboration and excellence as our objectives".

"Looking at the research we do in Chile, it is possible to realize that we have a niche, in which Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Gonzalo Navarro and the also IMFD researcher, Leopoldo Bertossi, who were the ones who initiated the formation of groups that we ended up working in very specific areas, such as databases, and in which we managed to highlight the work being done in Chile at a global level," adds Arenas.

A career dedicated to computer science

Marcelo Arenas is Professor of the Department of Computer Science and the Institute of Mathematical and Computational Engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Former director of IMFD and the Semantic Web Research Center, he holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto (Canada) and his areas of interest are data management, applications of logic in computer science and the semantic web. He has participated as an invited expert in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and according to Google Scholar, his articles have received 12165 citations.

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, bringing together educators, researchers and practitioners to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the challenges of the field. ACM strengthens the collective voice of computing through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for lifelong learning, professional development and professional networking. The ACM Fellows Program, initiated in 1993, celebrates the exceptional contributions of outstanding members in the field of computer science. These People have helped enlighten IT researchers, developers, practitioners and end users around the world. The new ACM Fellows join a distinguished list of colleagues to whom ACM and its members look for guidance and leadership in computing and information technology.

The ACM has previously recognized the work of Marcelo Arenas: in 2021 he was named a "Distinguished Member" of the ACM and highlighted the academic in its "People of ACM" section, which chooses participants of the Association whose scientific achievements have made a difference in the advancement of computing as a science and profession, and in this interview, they highlighted Arenas' professional career as well as his personal story.