Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon is the director of the Human-Centered Data Science Lab at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on enabling humans to explore and gain insight from vast data sets.
Aragon's work includes:
Visual analytics (visualization and machine learning)
Data science and big data
Emotion in informal text communication
Games for good (collaborative educational games)
Her early work was in theoretical computer science. She was the co-inventor (with Raimund Seidel) of the treap, a binary search tree in which each node has both a key and a priority, and the randomized search tree, which uses random priorities in treaps to achieve good average-case performance.
Aragon received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1982, her master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 and, her Ph.D. in computer science from the same institution in 2004.
In 2008, Aragon won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for her work.
The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. The awards are conferred annually at the White House.
Aragon was the architect for Sunfall, a visual analytics system for supernova astrophysics. She developed an augmented-reality visualization system for helicopter pilots that increased their ability to land safely during simulated hazardous conditions.
In 2015, she received the HCDE Faculty Innovator in Research Award from the University of Washington. She won the Distinguished Alumni Award in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2013, the student-nominated Faculty Innovator in Teaching Award from her department at UW that same year.
Aragon has been principal investigator or co-PI for over $27M in grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Washington Research Foundation, the UW Center for Commercialization, Microsoft, and Intel.
Prior to her appointment at UW, she was a computer scientist and data scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for six years and NASA Ames Research Center for nine years, and before that, an airshow and test pilot, entrepreneur, and member of the United States Aerobatic Team. She is also a champion aerobatic pilot.