Rina Dechter

Rina Dechter is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), affiliated with the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS). She specializes in automated reasoning, probabilistic and constraint-based graphical models, and causal inference. Dechter has held leadership roles, including Co-Editor-in-Chief of Artificial Intelligence since 2011 and editorial board memberships in journals such as the Constraint Journal and Journal of Machine Learning Research.

Education:

• Ph.D., Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
• M.S., Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute
• B.S., Mathematics and Statistics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Research Interests: Dechter’s work focuses on computational aspects of automated reasoning, constraint processing, probabilistic reasoning, and causal inference. She develops efficient algorithms for graphical models, emphasizing tractable reasoning tasks and anytime search strategies. Her recent projects include causal decision-making frameworks funded by a $5M NSF grant.

Awards:

• Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991)
• AAAI Fellow (1994)
• ACP Research Excellence Award (2007)
• ACM Fellow (2013)
• Elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2025)

Grants & Collaborations: She leads a multi-institutional NSF-funded project on causal foundations of AI decision-making. Her work emphasizes trustworthiness in AI through causal models, with applications in robotics and public health.