Paola Buitrago

Bio

Paola A. Buitrago is the Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Big Data (AIBD) group at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center at Carnegie Mellon University. The AIBD group is focused on advancing and supporting the convergence of High Performance Computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data for open science. Buitrago oversees cyberinfrastructure projects for AI research on emerging hardware and software technologies, enabling development of advanced algorithms and modeling approaches. Buitrago is the Principal Investigator and Project Director of the NSF-funded Neocortex supercomputer which features innovative AI-specialized hardware. Buitrago also serves as Co-Principal Investigator and Associate Director for Data Science for the NSF-funded Bridges-2 system and supports PSC’s Big Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) initiative, through which Internet-scale datasets are being integrated with supercomputing resources for cross-cutting research communities. Buitrago’s diverse background includes academic undergraduate and graduate studies in Machine Learning, Chemical Engineering, and Systems and Computing Engineering. Her background also includes research in deep learning, large scale data, and workflow management for high energy physics international collaborations at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, IL. Buitrago also developed courses in machine learning, simulation, and optimization at the university level. Passionate about education in technology, Buitrago has experience launching and running an education-focused start-up. Buitrago’s research interests lie at the intersection of HPC and AI for optimization of complex systems including biological and computing environments. For more information on Buitrago’s work, please visit: Buitrago’s ORCID page.