Posted on January 17, 2023 by Chris Reichert
Adel Alaeddini, Ph.D.
Associate Professor elected to Data Science Faculty Fellows Program
Adel Alaeddini, Ph.D., an associate professor of mechanical engineering, has been elected as a faculty fellow by the UTSA School of Data Science. Faculty fellows are appointed to take on projects aimed at ensuring the university’s future as a leading center of data science research and education. Alaeddini, who holds Ph.Ds. in mechanical and industrial engineering as well as an MS in computer science, will lead a project to expand data engineering education at the school.
“It has been a great privilege and opportunity for me to be selected,” he said. “I feel I’ve been very lucky because it gives me a great opportunity for self-growth, in terms of building my network, knowing more people, knowing more about the mechanic of a new school and how new programs are being designed and improved. Another aspect of that is being able to contribute to high-impact problems at UTSA and in the community.”
Alaeddini says he has always enjoyed mathematics and been intrigued by mechanical objects like cars and airplanes. His research focuses on machine learning and its applications in healthcare, manufacturing, and engineering, specifically graph analytics, active learning, and high-dimensional data analytics. He is also the director of UTSA’s Advanced Data Engineering Lab. With his background and his passion for both research and education, Alaeddini says he is excited and honored to lead the faculty fellowship project.
The immediate goal of Alaeddini’s fellowship project is to create a certificate program to begin training high-quality data engineers to meet the needs of both industry and government. From there, he hopes to expand the program to potentially include a master’s degree in data engineering. However, education is only one piece of the project.
“To me, education and research are two complementary pieces of any successful academic endeavor,” he said. “This program would not only improve the immediate need, which is data engineering talent, but also lend a hand to improving the research, both in terms of research opportunities and research dollars.”
Another benefit of this project is the expansion of industry partnerships. By strengthening such relationships, Alaeddini says, the School of Data science can learn of new and impactful data engineering problems which would in turn further research, publications, and funding to improve the school’s future academic endeavors.
— Chris Reichert
