Ricardo Baeza-Yates was awarded the National Prize for Applied Sciences and Technology.
Ricardo Baeza-Yates, academic at the University of Chile and senior researcher at the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data, was awarded the National Prize for Applied Sciences and Technology by the Ministry of Education.
For the director of the IMFD, Juan Reutter, DCC UC academic, Ricardo "throughout his career has been a great mentor for our group. He was the PhD supervisor of several of our researchers, and a reference for those of us who came to the academy after he left to pursue his career in Europe and North America. This well-deserved achievement is a source of pride for our entire IMFD community, and contributes even more to highlight the importance for the country of having academics studying data management and artificial intelligence".
"We have deeply valued the contribution he has made precisely to the area of computing, to data mining, and in particular we have also valued the work he has done on ethics in the use of data and artificial intelligence, which is very relevant precisely to the times we live in today, about how the use of information technologies and particularly artificial intelligence has been increasingly incorporated into the daily growth of our society," said the Minister of Education, Nicolás Cataldo, about the award to Baeza-Yates.
"We are really happy and proud to be able to distinguish a Chilean but worldwide figure in the field of computer science and computer engineering, who has contributed to both basic science and its applications, which is what this award for applied science is all about," added the rector of the U. de Chile, Rosa Devés.
He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada); Master in Electrical Engineering and Master in Computer Science; Civil Electrical Engineer and Bachelor in Computer Science, all degrees obtained at the University of Chile. He is currently Research Director of the Institute for Experiential Artificial Intelligence at Northeastern University's Silicon Valley campus and an associate member of the Network Science Institute at the same university.
His areas of interest include algorithms and data structures, information retrieval, search and data mining on the Web as well as data science and data visualization. In addition, the use of machine learning for human welfare, including the impact of artificial intelligence biases. He has also been one of the pioneers of bioinformatics in Chile.
National Prize for Natural Sciences 2024
Meanwhile, the academic from the University of Santiago, José Zagal Moya, won the National Prize for Natural Sciences 2024 for his contribution in key areas for the challenges currently facing the world, such as the clean conversion of energies.
He is a chemist from the University of Chile, Ph. D. from Case Western Reserve University (USA) and did his Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. Internationally, he is a member of the Latin American Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry of the United Kingdom awarded him the 2018 Fellow Award for his contribution in various areas of electrochemistry.
At the national level, he is a member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences and an academic of outstanding scientific production, with more than 200 publications in indexed journals. He has been named Distinguished Professor and recognized last year for his 50 years of service to the U. de Santiago.
"In this 2024, in which we commemorate the 175th anniversary of our University of Santiago de Chile, I want to express my satisfaction for this new contribution made by Dr. José Zagal Moya to the recognition of our university, which supported his candidacy for the National Prize of Natural Sciences, convinced of the merit that corresponded to him at the national level," said Rodrigo Vidal, rector of the USACH.
"I extend my congratulations to Dr. Zagal, who today becomes the third National Award winner of our house of studies, to him and to all those who have been his collaborators and students throughout these years," he said.