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<TITLE>Yolanda Gil's Homepage</TITLE>
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<H1> <a href="foaf.rdf#me">Yolanda Gil</a> </H1>
I serve as <b>Director of New Initiatives in AI and Data Science</b> 
at the <A HREF="http://www.usc.edu/">
USC</A>
<A HREF="http://viterbischool.usc.edu/">
Viterbi School of Engineering</A>, and <b>Senior Director for Major Strategic AI and Data Science Initiatives</b> 
at <A HREF="http://www.usc.edu/">
USC</A>'s <A HREF="http://www.isi.edu/">
Information Sciences Institute (ISI)</A>.
<p>

<p>
As Principal Scientist at USC/ISI I lead
the 
<b><A HREF="https://knowledgecaptureanddiscovery.github.io/">
Knowledge Capture and Discovery</A></b> research group, which is part
of <a href="http://ai.isi.edu/">AI@ISI</a>.
My research focuses on intelligent interfaces for knowledge 
capture, which is a central topic in
our projects concerning 
knowledge-based planning and problem solving,
information analysis and assessment of trust, 
semantic annotation, 
agent and software choreography,
and community-wide development of knowledge bases.
A recent focus is assisting 
scientists with intelligent systems that analyze data, test hypotheses, 
and make new discoveries.
If you would like to visit us, give a talk, or join our research group, 
please contact me!
<P>

<P>
I am also 
<b>Research Professor</b> in the 
<A HREF="http://www.cs.usc.edu/">
Department of Computer Science</A> 
and in the <A HREF="http://spatial.usc.edu">
Spatial Sciences Institute</A> 
at 
<A HREF="http://www.usc.edu/">
USC</A>.

<p>
I am
<b>Director of the 
<A HREF="https://datascience.usc.edu/">
Data Science Program</A></b> at USC.  I designed 
<a href="teaching/TeachingDataScienceToNonProgrammers.html">
an innovative course for teaching data science to non-programmers</a>.  

<p>
I am also <b>Director of the 
USC 
<a href="https://sites.usc.edu/ckids/">Center for Knowledge-Powered Interdisciplinary Data Science (CKIDS)</a></b>.
DataFest is a recurring, semester-long event at USC where students from different backgrounds and programs get 
hands-on experience in faculty-guided projects involving data science.  We work with the USC 
<a href="https://gridsusc.github.io/">GRIDS data science student organization</a>, please contact us if you are 
interested in joining!

<P>
Before coming to ISI in 1992, 
I received my PhD in Computer Science 
from 
<A HREF="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/scs/scs.html">
Carnegie Mellon University</A>.  My thesis focused 
on the acquisition of planning knowledge through the 
formulation of deliberate experiments with the environment.
I have been fascinated ever since with the challenge of enabling 
computers to learn new knowledge
both autonomously and from being taught.

<P><HR>

<P>
<b><font color="#ED181E">Quick Links</font></b>: <b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="cv/short-bio.html">short bio</a></font></b>,
<b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="cv/yg-cv.pdf">CV</a></font></b>, 
<b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="awards.html">awards and grants</a></font></b>, 
<b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="http://www.isi.edu/ikcap">research projects</a></font></b>,
<b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="publications.html">publications</a></font></b>,
<b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="presentations/">recent invited talks</a></font></b>,
<b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="#teaching">teaching and advising</a></font></b>,
<b><font color="#ED181E"><a href="#contact">contact information</a></font></b>.

<P><HR>

<P>
<a href="presentations/">
<b><font color="#ED181E">Recent presentations</font></b>
<img width="300" style="float:left" src="pics/YGil-presenting.png"/></a>
<P><HR>

<P>
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<H2>Research Interests and Projects</H2>

I have broad research interests in AI and data science. 
The best way to learn about my work is through my 
<b><a href="publications.html">publications</a></b> and 
<b><a href="presentations/">recent invited talks</a></b>.
You can find more information about my research in the web pages of the
<b><A HREF="http://www.isi.edu/ikcap">
Interactive Knowledge Capture</A></b> research group.  
Very new projects
are described briefly in the
<b><A HREF="awards.html">
new awards roster</A></b>.

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<H2> <A HREF="awards.html">
Roster of awards and grants</A> </H2>
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<H2> Professional Activities </H2>

<H3> American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)</H3>

<p>
I am Past-President of the <a href="http://www.aaai.org/">Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)</a>.  
and member of the AAAI Executive Committee.  
AAAI is the foremost international scientific society for AI.
AAAI sponsors several conferences, including AAAI, IAAI, EAAI, AIIDE, and numerous workshops and symposia.  
It also organizes educational activities, competitions that test AI systems, and a range of other activities that support the AI community.
One of the most fun things I do for AAAI is be a judge at the 
<a href="https://student.societyforscience.org/intel-isef/">Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)</a> where 
students from many countries present science projects, and most computer science projects are actually in AI.  
These young researchers develop amazing projects and are incredibly inspiring! 

<H3> ACM SIGAI </H3>

<p>
I am Past Chair of the <A HREF="http://sigai.acm.org">Special Interest Group in Artificial Intelligence (SIGAI)</A> of the 
<A HREF="http://www.acm.org">Association for Computing Machinery</A>.
Among other things, we started the <a href="http://sigai.acm.org/aimatters/">AI Matters</a> magazine and the 
<a href="http://sigai.acm.org/cnc/">Career Network and Conference</a> for early career researchers in AI.
SIGAI supports the AI community with activities ranging from conference sponsorship, 
student fellowships, research awards, and publications management in the ACM Digital Library.  
Join ACM SIGAI, and please contact any of the officers if you would like to volunteer and get involved.
</p>

<H3> Conferences and Meetings </H3>

<p>
This year I am co-chair of <a href="https://www.kdd.org/kdd2020/special-days/earth-day">Earth Day</a> at the <a href="https://www.kdd.org/kdd2020/">ACM Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD)</a>.
I was General Chair for the <a href="http://iswc2016.semanticweb.org/">International Semantic Web Conference</a>, 
held in Kobe on October 17-21, 2016.  
I regularly review for 
<A HREF="http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/National">
AAAI</A> (I was program co-chair in 2006),
<A HREF="http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/IAAI">
IAAI</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.iuiconf.org">
IUI</A> (I was program chair in 2002), 
<A HREF="http://iswc.semanticweb.org">
ISWC</A> (I was program co-chair in 2005), 
<A HREF="http://www.k-cap.org">
K-CAP</a> (I was general chair in 2009),
<A HREF="http://wwwconference.org/www2010">
WWW</a> (I was area chair in 2010),
and
<A HREF="http://kmi.open.ac.uk/events/ekaw">
EKAW</A>.
I have also been in the program committee, though less frequently, for
<A HREF="http://www.icaps-conference.org">
ICAPS</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.aicml.cs.ualberta.ca/banff04/icml">
ICML</A> (I was area chair in 2002),
and
<A HREF="http://kr.org">
KR</A>.
</P>

<P>There are two excellent papers that I strongly recommend to reviewers of conferences: 
<a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1035153&coll=GUIDE&dl=ACM&CFID=73335824&CFTOKEN=12076093">"The health of research conferences and the dearth of big idea papers", by David Patterson</a>
and 
<a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1110825.1110831">"Reviewing the reviewers", by Ken Church</a>.

<H3> Journals </H3>

<P>
I am a founding Editorial Board member of 
the new <b>
<A HREF="http://tist.acm.org">
ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology</A></b>,
<b>
<A HREF="http://www.elsevier.com/locate/websem">
Journal of Web Semantics</A></b>,
and
<b>
<A HREF="http://www.iospress.nl/html/15705838.html">
Applied Ontology</A></b>,
and an Editorial Board member of the
<b>
<A HREF="http://www.journals.elsevier.com/artificial-intelligence">
Artificial Intelligence journal</A></b>.
I was 
Associate Editor of the
<b>
<A HREF="http://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/about.html">
Cognitive Science journal</A></b> from 2006 to 2008.

<H3> World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)</H3>

<P> 
I was chair of the Incubator Group on 
<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/charter">
Provenance</A>, which is part of the 
<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw">
Semantic Web Activity</A> 
at the 
<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/">
World Wide Web Consortium</A>.  
Provenance refers to the sources, entities, and processes involved in
creating or delivering an artifact.
Provenance is a topic of great interest in a variety of contexts
including eBusiness, eGovernment, eScience, copyright and licensing,
and <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/data">
linked data</A> in the 
<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/">semantic web</A>.
<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/wiki/">
The wiki contains several reports</A> produced by the group, 
including its Final Report.  
I was involved in the follow-on 
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/">
W3C Provenance Working Group that led to the PROV standard</a>.

<H3> National Science Foundation (NSF)</H3>

<p> I was elected to the <a href="http://www.earthcube.org/">
National Science Foundation's EarthCube founding Leadership Council</a> 
as representative (and Co-Chair) of the 
<a href="http://www.earthcube.org/group/technology-architecture-committee">EarthCube Technology and Architecture Committee (TAC)</a>
for the term 2014-2017. 
The EarthCube initiative is a partnership between the NSF Directorate of Geosciences and 
the NSF Directorate of Computer Science and Engineering to transform geosciences research 
through novel cyberinfrastructure that is driven by the needs of the science community 
and supports unprecedented sharing, exploration, and discovery. 
Its Leadership Council oversees the governance of the EarthCube initiative, 
and the TAC is responsible for technology development, architecture design, and fostering standards.
</p>

<P> 
I served in the 
<A HREF="http://www.nsf.gov/cise/advisory.jsp">
Advisory Committee</A> of the 
<A HREF="http://www.nsf.gov/cise/advisory.jsp">
NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)</A> 
Directorate from 2006 to 2008.

</P>



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<a name="teaching"></a>

<H2> Teaching and Advising</H2>

<p>
I am  Director of the 
<a href="https://datascience.usc.edu/">
Data Science Program</a> at USC.  
</p>

<p>
I designed a new course to teach data science to non-programmers.  
I used to teach that class at USC as <a href="http://datascience.usc.edu">DSCI549</a>.
You can see <a href="teaching/TeachingDataScienceToNonProgrammers.html">the class syllabus and several papers about the design of the curriculum</a>.
</p>

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<a name="papers"></a>

<H2> Publications</H2>

<h3><A HREF="publications.html">All publications</A></h3>

<h3><A HREF="http://www.isi.edu/ikcap/">Publications organized by project</A></h3>


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<a name="contact"></a>

<H2>Contact information: </H2>

<P>
<DL>
<DD> <A HREF="http://www.isi.edu">
     Information Sciences Institute</A>
<DD> <A HREF="http://www.usc.edu">
     University of Southern California</A>
<DD>4676 <A HREF="http://www.isi.edu/lax-isi-directions.html">Admiralty Way</A>, Suite 1001
<DD> <A HREF="http://www.marinadelrey.com">Marina del Rey</A>, CA 90292 
<DD> at isi.edu with user gil
<DD> Phone: (310) 448-8794
<DD> Fax: (310) 823-6714  
<DD> Office: 941W 
</DL>
</P>

<P>
<DL>
<DD> Assistant: Alma Nava (at isi.edu with user anava)
</DL>
</P>

<P>
<DL>
<DD> USC campus offices (by appointment only): GER 207 and PHE 516
</DL>
</P>

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<P>
<i>Last updated: October 27, 2020</i>
</P>