Diana Benavides Prado, PhD.

AI/ML/Data Strategist and Researcher

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Auckland, New Zealand

I am a computer scientist with over 10 years of professional and research experience in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. I have collaborated with researchers and practitioners in various domains, including social welfare, healthcare, life sciences, justice, and insurance, to plan and execute projects in these areas. I have worked with both public and private sectors in Colombia, Chile, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, leading and managing teams of data scientists, data architects, and machine learning engineers in research and applied projects.

My professional experience includes leadership of foundational research projects in advanced areas such as transfer learning, continual machine learning, large language models, and human-algorithm collaboration. I am particularly interested in studying the opportunities for knowledge transfer in increasingly knowledgeable continual learning systems and applying cutting-edge machine learning techniques to challenging real-world problems, especially in the life sciences domain and human well-being.

I have extensive experience as an invited speaker, organizer, and committee member of several top artificial intelligence conferences, including AAAI, IJCAI, NeurIPS, ICML and ICDM. Additionally, I am a board member of the Artificial Intelligence Researchers Association of New Zealand.

I currently work as a Lecturer in Computer Science (AI & ML) at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. I am also a CEO for Manoa Data/Manoa Data Aotearoa.

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Apr 1, 2024 I am serving The 22nd Australasian Data Science and Machine Learning Conference (AusDM 2024) as General Co-Chair and PC Co-Chair - Application Track. CFP and deadlines: https://ausdm24.ausdm.org/
Nov 1, 2023 I have been awarded a Marsden Fast Start research grant by The Royal Society of New Zealand. More info: https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/funds-and-opportunities/marsden/awarded-grants/marsden-fund-awards-2023/
Aug 1, 2023 I have been granted the New Staff Research Award - Faculty of Science UoA.