Vanessa Frias-Martinez

Vanessa Frias-Martinez is an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Maryland's iSchool and holds an affiliate appointment in the Department of Computer Science and UMIACS (University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies). Her research focuses on urban computing, human mobility modeling, and data science for social good, particularly leveraging mobile and ubiquitous technology data to inform policy decisions in areas like disaster response, socio-economic development, and smart transportation systems.

Education: M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University (no specific years listed). Prior to her current role, she was a researcher at Telefonica Research in Madrid (2009–2013).

Research Interests: Urban computing, big data analytics, machine learning applications for social impact, smart cities, crisis communication, and ethical data practices. She leads the Urban Computing Lab, which develops data-driven solutions to address societal challenges.

Awards: Recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2018) and a member of the inaugural UMD Research Leaders Fellows Program (2020). Her work emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration and equitable technology applications.

Advising & Grants: Advises PhD candidates including Saad Mohammad Abrar, Naman Awasthi, and Daniel Smolyak. Her grants focus on topics like algorithmic fairness in predictive models and disaster management systems. She recruits motivated students with backgrounds in AI, machine learning, and data science.

Labs/Teams: Leads the Urban Computing Lab, collaborating with interdisciplinary teams to advance smart city technologies and ethical urban analytics.