Laura Haas serves as the Donna M and Robert J Manning Dean at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College of Information and Computer Sciences. Prior to this, she spent 36 years at IBM, where she rose to the level of IBM Fellow and held leadership roles such as Director of the Accelerated Discovery Lab and Director of Computer Science at IBM's Almaden Research Center. Her research focuses on data integration, database systems, and accelerating discovery through data-driven approaches. She pioneered systems like Starburst, Garlic, and Clio, and founded IBM's Accelerated Discovery Lab to enhance data analysis tools for domain experts. Haas holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin (1981) and an AB from Harvard University (1978). She has held sabbaticals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and ETH Zurich. Her contributions earned her awards like the ACM SIGMOD Codd Innovation Award and Anita Borg Institute Technical Leadership Award. She is a Fellow of the ACM and member of the National Academy of Engineering. Her research spans federated data systems, schema mapping, and big data challenges. She advocates for data science education reforms and chairs key initiatives like the National Academies Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. The DREAM Lab under her leadership explores data systems for exploration and analytics. Education: PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 1981 AB, Harvard University, 1978 Awards: ACM SIGMOD Codd Innovation Award Anita Borg Institute Technical Leadership Award IBM Fellow Member, National Academy of Engineering Labs/Teams: DREAM Lab (Data systems Research for Exploration, Analytics, and Modeling) Her work bridges theoretical foundations and practical systems, emphasizing tools that empower domain experts over technical complexities. Current initiatives focus on democratizing data science through education and tooling advancements.









