IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2012 - 24

programs to interest even the youngest students in STEM. As a mother of
two girls, Purcell, a Girl Scout leader, is
especially impressed by two Girl Scout
programs: FIRST Robotics, which gears
girls toward science, and Imagine Engineering, which provides girls with exposure to engineering.
-Katianne Williams

What's All the Buzz
Around "Big Data?"

Meet Dr. Aditya Vailaya
Chief Scientist and Engineering Director of Retrevo Inc., Dr. Aditya Vailaya is
an expert in computer science, machine
learning, and statistical pattern recognition. Vailaya comes to Retrevo
from Agilent Labs where he conducted
leading-edge research in the areas of
computational systems biology critical
to Agilent's strategic business interests, whether in terms of helping to
generate new businesses and products
or evaluating technologies and business areas for a fit within Agilent. He
was the primary contributor to the Literature Search Plugin for Cytoscape, an
open source platform that has become
the de-facto tool for systems biology
research.
He has been awarded nine U.S. patents, published extensively in over 35
peer-reviewed, international journals
and conferences in the fields of pattern
recognition and bioinformatics, served
as a valued referee for a number of
reputed journals and conferences, and
worked on the program committee for a
number of conferences. As recognition
of his significant contributions to the
field of pattern recognition and image
processing, Vailaya was awarded the
Best Student Paper Award in 1999, at
the International Conference on Image
Processing, in Kobe, Japan, and the Best
Paper Award in 1995 from the Computer
Society of India journal.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2012.2215256
Date of publication: 1 November 2012

IEEE womEn In EngInEErIng magazInE

IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine
Jain, provided a great environment where
(WIE): Tell us about yourself.
I learned how to train machines to solve
real-world problems. He encouraged me
Aditya Vailaya: I grew up in India with
to take up internships in the summer so
a very loving family that included my
I could supplement my academic experiparents and one brother. Childhood was
ence with practice in industry. Through
lots of fun. I spent most of my time playinternships at Siemens Research Coring sports like cricket, soccer, and badporation in Princeton, New Jersey, IBM
minton. Sports were my passion.
Almaden Research Center in San
It was in high school that a
substitute teacher kindled a
Jose, California, and Hewlett
Packard Labs in Palo Alto, Calikeen interest in science. He
fornia, I gathered a keen sense
spent a couple of months
of how important a role big
in our junior year telling
data played in the industry.
stories of great American
I joined Agilent Research
scientists and their invenLabs after completing my
tions in science and engiPh.D. and focused in the field
neering. I still remember
Aditya Vailaya
of bioinformatics and syshow he related a story of
tems biology. This was 2000, the peak
American Physicist Richard Feynman
of the genomics revolution and human
and his antics playing intelligent
genome project. Advances in highpranks on fellow colleagues at Los
throughput studies opened up new aveAlamos. That year, I decided to become
nues for researching biological systems
a scientist when I grew up.
that generated large amounts of data
This passion carried me through
for tens of thousands of genes and proan undergraduate degree in comteins. These new experimental studies
puter science and engineering at the
also brought about new challenges. Until
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
then, most biological researchers were
It was a chance project in vision-based
specialists, studying very narrow sysnavigation during my undergraduate
tems incorporating tens of molecules
studies that hooked me onto artifical
at most. The high-throughput experiintelligence (AI). Along with a classmate,
mental revolution now exposed these
I built a simple robot that avoided collidresearchers to orders of magnitude more
ing with objects using vision-based senmolecules than what they were familiar
sors. Our phase of the project focused on
with. There was thus a dire need for
collision avoidance. I was too fascinated
tools to aid researchers with expertise in
by the project and decided to pursue
specialized fields to collaborate with one
higher studies in AI and machine learnanother and improve their understanding. I came to Michigan State University
ing of complex biological systems.
and earned a doctorate degree in comOur group at Agilent Labs pioneered
puter science specializing in statistical
with leading researchers from
pattern recognition.
the University of San Diego,
"Through
the Systems Biology
WIE: Talk about your
Institute at Seattle,
career path. How did
internships at
and Memorial
you transition your
Siemens Research
Sloan Kettering
computer science
Corporation in Princeton,
Hospital in New
background into
New Jersey, IBM Almaden
York to develop
Agilent Labs and
Research Center and Hewlett Cytoscape, an
commerce? How
open source
did you forge
Packard Labs, I gathered
network compuyour own patha keen sense of how
tation and visuway into big data?
important a role big
alization software
Vailaya: My advisor
data played in the
to aid interdisciplinat Michigan State
ary collaboration and
University, Prof. Anil
industry."
december 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2012