The Rafik B. Hariri Institute of Informatics and Computational Science & Engineering A new director as of July 1. Ioannis Pashaldisa College of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Computer Science and Data Science, will oversee the Institute’s move to a new landmark building (the largest on the Charles River Campus), the Center for Informatics & Data Science†
Paschaldis replaces Eric Kolaczykwho is leaving BU after nearly a quarter of a century to move to Canada with his family.
The appointment adds to Paschalidis’ already impressive portfolio. He leads BUs Center for Information and Systems Engineering (CISE), which researches and designs intelligent data systems. He co-wrote the proposal with which the BU received a matching state grant for the new RASTIC robotics lab, which will enable more undergraduate and graduate students to research and test next-gen robots and artificial intelligence.
The Center for Computing & Data Sciences, construction on track to be completed later this year, represents the BUs raising the flag in a field that is reshaping academic disciplines and society. Among Hariri’s neighbors in the building will be the new one Faculty of Computer Science & Data Science and the College of Arts & Sciences departments of computer science and mathematics and statistics.
“Putting all these groups under the same roof, I think, will further facilitate the interactions,” says Paschalidis.
Aside from the move, he says he has three priorities as the institute’s new leader, the first being forging closer ties with the School of Medicine. “I feel — and I think the university agrees — that we haven’t taken the full advantage of having a medical school,” he says. “And I think a lot more can be done” to arrange collaborations between engineers and computer scientists and doctors – both those who do research and healers in the hospital ward. “There’s a lot of activity today around AI and health, AI and medicine, automation, new detection technologies that would improve the way we can sense what’s happening on a daily basis, identify diseases, find new biomarkers.
“I want to increase the interaction between the people who do the science, the technology and the algorithms, and the people who do medicine and health.”
“I want to increase the interaction between the people who do the science, the technology and the algorithms and the people who are in medicine and health.”
A second initiative will be to preserve ‘Hariri’s service aspect’ for BU professors, including the institute’s fellows program, which provides research support to junior faculties and to students. That support also brings different disciplines together in “community-building activities,” he says.
The third will be to continue “targeted research”, that is, “internal funding mechanisms to encourage groups at the university to unite around a specific area” in year-long research teams. “The main goal is to form teams that then have sufficient cohesion and sufficient preparatory work so that they can go out, write a proposal [for competitive grant funding]and be successful.”
Pashalidis takes over at a critical point, says Gloria Watersvice president and associate provost for research,” as we launch new efforts in computer science and data science.
“His deep roots in engineering, his role as a founding member of the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, as well as his extensive collaborations across the Charles River and Medical campuses position him well to build on the Institute’s tremendous success helped in fostering collaborative research that connects faculty across the university.
“I am confident that his focus on research excellence and his highly collaborative style will further make the Hariri Institute an internationally recognized center of excellence,” added Waters.
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