
Meet the December Member of the Month, César Uribe, the Louis Owen Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
César's research interests include distributed learning and optimization, decentralized control, algorithm analysis, and computational optimal transport, and he currently studies the mathematics of distributed decision making.
How do you see computation and data advancing in the future?
A lot of the “novel” machine learning and artificial intelligence we see now is based on decades old mathematical theories, for example cybernetics, adaptive control, and mathematical programming. However, I would argue that the great revolution we are seeing today could be attributed to two main new paradigms, namely, the availability of data, driven by new, small, cost efficient, fast, and precises sensors, and orders of magnitude improvement in computational power. From the statistical learning theory approach, larger amounts of data allow solutions that are closer to the optimal.
How do you see the Ken Kennedy Institute supporting you and/or your research?
The Ken Kennedy Institute is the storm. Let me explain this. It is very hard to predict scientific revolutions. Imagine a cloudy sky, one might have a hard time guessing when the next lightning is going to strike, sometimes we only hear the thunder, or see the flash. Also, while not impossible, inducing lightning is hard. However, we can add more clouds. This is what the KKI does: add clouds via events, people, meetings, conferences, etc., so that lightning strikes are more likely to happen.
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The 2022 AI in Health Conference Overview
A Promising Introduction to the Trends Shaping the Future of Healthcare
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Interested in learning more about the Ken Kennedy Institute's inaugural AI in Health Conference? Check out the event overview on our Medium page to read about the purpose behind creating the conference, the various topics that were discussed, and takeaways from attendees who joined in on the fun.
We'll also be posting a series of articles highlighting specific speaker sessions from the conference over the next few months, so follow along on Medium and keep an eye out for Badri Roysam's upcoming article on his talk: Automated Cell and Tissue Image Analysis for Aiding Therapeutics Discovery.
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IEEE Recognitions
Lydia Kavraki, Rebecca Richards-Kortum, & Eugene Ng
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The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized three Rice faculty with prestigious honors in the 2023 IEEE Awards.
Lydia Kavraki received the IEEE Frances E. Allen Medal for contributions to foundational probabilistic algorithms and randomized search methods that have broad impact in robotic motion planning and computational biology.
Rebecca Richards-Kortum received the IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology for contributions to optical solutions for cancer detection and leadership in establishing the field of global health engineering.
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Eugene Ng was named an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to data center network innovations and methods for internet delay estimation. The designation of Fellow is the highest honor conferred by the IEEE on its members.
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Padgett Named NSF BRITE Fellow
Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Jamie Padgett, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Engineering and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Rice University, is one of five researchers in the U.S. to be named an NSF BRITE Fellow and receive a five-year, $1 million grant from the NSF Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering program.
With the funding, Padgett will develop new methods for infrastructure resilience modeling in response to uncertain, evolving conditions resulting from earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding and other disasters.
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Call for Abstracts: Energy HPC Conference
Due by January 20, 2023
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You are invited to prepare an extended abstract for presentation at the 16th Annual 2023 Energy High Performance Computing Conference hosted by the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University on February 28 – March 2, 2023.
The Energy HPC Conference is the premier meeting place for the energy industry to engage in conversations about challenges and opportunities in high performance computing, computational science and engineering, machine learning, and data science.
We encourage prospective speakers to submit abstracts that highlight technology, use-cases, and solutions that support data-driven discovery and decision making. Accepted abstracts will be asked to deliver a 20-minute presentation, including Q&A, as part of the conference program.
Abstracts are due January 20, 2023.
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Climate Change AI Innovation Grants 2023
Call for Proposals | Deadline: March 1, 2023

Climate Change AI's grant program will allocate grants of up to USD 150K for conducting research projects of 1 year in duration. Research projects shall leverage AI or machine learning to address problems in climate change mitigation, adaptation, or climate science, or shall consider problems related to impact assessment and governance at the intersection of climate change and machine learning.
- Grant amount: Up to $150K per proposal, for projects of 12 months in duration.
- Scope: Research projects at the intersection of AI/machine learning and climate change.
- Eligibility: Principal Investigator must be affiliated with an accredited university in an OECD Member country. There are no eligibility restrictions on co-Investigators.
- Proposal submission deadline: March 1, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST
Visit their website for more information, and contact grants@climatechange.ai for questions.
Apply for an ARPA-H Project Manager Position
Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) supports transformative research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs – ranging from molecular to societal – to provide transformative health solutions for all.
ARPA-H will support concepts brought to life directly from Program Managers that have not only identified a key problem in health today, but are also passionate about a vision to bring forward revolutionary solutions to solve the problem, and do so in an equitable way.
Focus areas:
- Health Science Futures: Expanding what’s technically possible
- Scalable Solutions: Reaching everyone quickly
- Proactive Health: Keeping people from being patients
- Resilient Systems: Building integrated healthcare systems
Learn more about the application process.
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