Mihaela van der Schaar | |
|---|---|
 Mihaela van der Schaar in January 2019 | |
| Born | 1971 (age 54–55) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Eindhoven University of Technology(BSc,MSc,PhD) |
| Thesis | System and network constrained scalable video compression (2001) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jan Biemond |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Computer engineering |
| Sub-discipline | Machine learning Artificial intelligence |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge University of California, Los Angeles |
| Website | vanderschaar-lab.com |
Mihaela van der SchaarFRS is theJohn Humphrey Plummer Professor of Machine Learning, AI, and Medicine at theUniversity of Cambridge,[1] where she is director of the Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine (CCAIM), and a Chancellor's Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles.[2]
Her research involves topics in signal and image processing, communication networks, network science, multimedia, game theory, distributed systems, machine learning, and AI.[3][4] van der Schaar focuses on medical applications of computer engineering, including AI-enabledpersonalized medicine.[5]
Van der Schaar received a joint Bachelor's/Master's (1996) degree and a Doctoral (2001) degree from theEindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Upon starting her studies, she was the only woman in a class of over 200.[5] She completed her PhD while simultaneously working as a researcher atPhilips Research Laboratories.
At Philips, van der Schaar helped develop the first algorithm forvideo streaming[6] and, as their representative to theInternational Organization for Standardization from 1999 to 2003, led working groups which determined early standards for streaming.[7]
Since 2005, van der Schaar has been on the faculty at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. In 2011, she founded UCLA's Center for Engineering Economics, Learning, and Networks, and she directed the group until its dissolution in 2016.[7]
From 2016 to 2018, van der Schaar was the Man Professor of Quantitative Finance at theOxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance.[8]
van der Schaar joined the faculty at theUniversity of Cambridge in 2018. In November 2020, van der Schaar was named the director of the new Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine, a research collaboration between theUniversity of Cambridge,GlaxoSmithKline andAstraZeneca to study applications of machine learning to the medical profession.[9][10]
In response to theCOVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, van der Schaar's research group was part of a collaboration with the UKNational Health Service, which used machine learning to predict shortages of ICU beds and ventilators in English hospitals.[11]
As of 2020, van der Schaar has published over 250 academic journal articles and submitted over 275conference papers, and her work has resulted in 35 USpatents and contributed to over 45international standards.[7]
As of 2022, van der Schaar's work has been cited over 23,000 times.[12]
van der Schaar was elected as aFellow of the IEEE in 2009, and she has held a fellowship with theAlan Turing Institute since 2016.[13]
She has also received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2004),[14] theIEEE Darlington Award (2011),[15] and the Oon Prize on Preventative Medicine from the University of Cambridge (2018).[16]
In 2019, aNesta report determined that van der Schaar was the most-cited female AI researcher in the UK.[3] She was elected aFellow of the Royal Society in 2024.[17]
