Regina Barzilay (born 1970) is an
Israeli-American
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, population = 110,000–150,000
, popplace = New York metropolitan area, Los Angeles metropolitan area, Miami metropolitan area, and other large metropolitan are ...
computer scientist. She is a professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
and a faculty lead for
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
at the
MIT Jameel Clinic
The MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (commonly, MIT Jameel Clinic; previously, J-Clinic) is a research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and health sc ...
. Her research interests are in
natural language processing
Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to pro ...
and applications of
deep learning
Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised.
De ...
to chemistry and
oncology
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...
.
Education
Barzilay was born in
Chișinău
Chișinău ( , , ), also known as Kishinev (russian: Кишинёв, r=Kishinjóv ), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Republic of Moldova. The city is Moldova's main industrial and commercial center, and is located in the ...
,
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
and emigrated to
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
with her parents at the age of 20.
She received bachelor and masters degrees from
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...
in 1993 and 1998, respectively. She obtained a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
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** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
in computer science from
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 2003 for research supervised by
Kathleen McKeown.
Career and research
After her PhD, she spent a year as a
postdoctoral researcher
A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...
at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
. She was appointed as Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
in 2016. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, which prompted her to conduct research in oncology. Barzilay won the
MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...
in 2017.
For her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, she led the development of Newsblaster, which recognized stories from different news sources as being about the same basic subject, and then paraphrased elements from the stories to create a summary.
In computational linguistics, Barzilay created algorithms that learned annotations from common languages (i.e. English) to analyze less understood languages.
Prompted by her experience with breast cancer, Barzilay is applying machine learning to oncology. She is collaborating with physicians and students to devise deep learning models that utilize images, text, and structured data to identify trends that affect early diagnosis, treatment, and disease prevention.
MIT Jameel Clinic
In 2018, Barzilay was appointed faculty lead for AI at the new
MIT Jameel Clinic
The MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (commonly, MIT Jameel Clinic; previously, J-Clinic) is a research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and health sc ...
, a research center in the field of AI health sciences, including disease detection,
drug discovery
In the fields of medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered.
Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or by ...
, and the development of
medical device
A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...
s. In 2020, she was part of the team—with fellow MIT Jameel Clinic faculty lead Professor
James J. Collins—that announced the discovery through
deep learning
Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised.
De ...
of
halicin
Halicin (SU-3327) is a chemical compound that acts as an inhibitor of the enzyme c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). Originally, it was researched for the treatment of diabetes, but development was discontinued for this application due to poor result ...
, the first new
antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of ...
compound for 30 years, which kills over 35 powerful
bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...
, including
antimicrobial-resistant tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
, the superbug
''C. difficile'', and two of the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
's top-three most deadly bacteria. In 2020, Collins, Barzilay and the MIT Jameel Clinic were also awarded funding through
The Audacious Project
The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative between TED and non-profits that convenes funders and social entrepreneurs in order to scale solutions to the world's most urgent challenges. In 2018, The TED Prize was recast as The Auda ...
to expand on the discovery of halicin in using AI to respond to the antibiotic resistance crisis through the development of new classes of antibiotics.
Awards and recognition
In 2017, Barzilay won the
MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...
, known as the "Genius Grant", for "developing machine learning methods that enable computers to process and analyze vast amounts of human language data."
She is also a recipient of various awards including the
NSF Career Award
The National Science Foundation CAREER awards, presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these endeavors i ...
, the
MIT Technology Review TR-35 Award,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
Faculty
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
ship and several Best Paper Awards at
NAACL
The North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) provides a regional focus for members of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) in North America
North America is a continent in the Nort ...
and
ACL.
Her teaching has also been recognized by MIT as she won the Jamieson Teaching Award in 2016.
She was nominated an
AAAI Fellow
Fellowship of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (abbreviated as AAAI Fellow or FAAAI) is an award granted to individuals that the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), judged to have made ...
in 2018 by the
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...
. In 2020, she became the first recipient of the $1 million
AAAI Squirrel AI Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barzilay, Regina
1971 births
Living people
Israeli computer scientists
American computer scientists
MIT School of Engineering faculty
American women computer scientists
Israeli women computer scientists
Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev alumni
Columbia University alumni
MacArthur Fellows
21st-century American scientists
American people of Israeli descent
Natural language processing researchers
Artificial intelligence researchers
American women academics
21st-century American women scientists