Professional Background
30 years of experience in AI research with extensive technical leadership experience in
managing basic and applied AI research involving a broad set of AI technologies (including
knowledge representation and reasoning, learning, natural language processing and dialog,
robotics, computer vision, multi-agent systems, and collaborative personal assistance) and their
integration with other computer science technologies. Named by CNET as “one of the 20 most
influential Latinos in tech” of 2016 and 2017.
Experience
SRI International, Menlo Park, CA
2023-2025 Associate Director, AI Center (PARC acquired by SRI 2023)
1998-2012 Program Director, Multi-agent and multi-robotic systems, AI Center. Recipient of SRI Presidential
Achievement Award, 2006.
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) Palo Alto, CA
2020 to 2023: Principal Scientist and Director of Collaborative and Conversational Systems research group (PARC acquired by SRI 2023)
Samsung Research America, Mountain View, CA
March 2019-Feb 2020 Senior Director, Dialogue and Knowledge Lab, AI Center
Nuance Communications, Sunnyvale, CA
2012-2019 Director of Artificial Intelligence. Developing and maturing next generation AI technologies
for conversational personal assistants. Research areas: Natural Language Understanding, machine
learning, dialog management, knowledge representation, and reasoning and planning. Also, co-organizer
of the Winograd Schema Challenge for evaluating commonsense reasoning systems.
1984-1989 Program Manager, AI Applications
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
2005-2007 Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI).
University of California, Berkeley
2005 Adjunct Professor, Collaborative Multi-agent Systems
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
1996-1998 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Collaborative Multi-agent Systems (Professor Barbara Grosz)
Educational background
S.B., Physics, MIT
M.S., Computer Science, Columbia University
PhD., Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania (advisor, Professor Mark Steedman), Fontaine
Research Fellow