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Aya Soffer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aya Soffer
איה סופר
Education
EmployerIBM
Scientific career
Thesis Retrieval by Content in Symbolic-Image Databases  (1995)
Doctoral advisorHanan Samet
WebsiteIBM Research profile

Aya Chasia Soffer (Hebrew: איה סופר) is an Israeli computer scientist, vice president for AI Technology in IBM Research, and the director of IBM's Haifa research laboratory.[1]

Education and career

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Soffer is the daughter of two scientists.[2] She received her bachelor's degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1986[2][3] and worked in the medical imaging industry for four years[2] before continuing to the department of computer science at the University of Maryland, College Park where she received a master's degree in 1992 and her PhD in 1995.[4] Her dissertation, Retrieval by Content in Symbolic-Image Databases, concerned information retrieval, and was supervised by Hanan Samet.[5]

After receiving her PhD she worked for the Goddard Space Flight Center as a research scientist working on NASA digital libraries for Earth science data. She began working at IBM in 1999.[4] She was part of the IBM Watson project,[6] and beginning in 2012, IBM's Project Debater, before taking on her current responsibilities as vice president for AI Technology and head of the Haifa laboratory for IBM Research.[2]

Recognition

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Soffer was named one of the most influential women ("Power Women") by Forbes Israel in 2019,[7] in 2020 she was named of the 100 most influential people influencing life in Israel by TheMarker,[8] and in 2021 one of the 50 most influential women in Israel by Globes[9]

References

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  1. ^ "Aya Soffer named as new Director of IBM's Haifa Research Lab". Calcalist. 3 March 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d Miller, Leslie (7 June 2021). "Harnessing the Power of AI, One Project at a Time: Alumna Aya Soffer's game-changing success story at IBM". University of Maryland Computer Science. Retrieved 2022-04-10.
  3. ^ "Aya Soffer: IBM's AI Trailblazer". Calcalist. 6 January 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Aya Soffer". Alumni Hall of Fame. University of Maryland Computer Science. Retrieved 2022-04-10.
  5. ^ Aya Soffer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. ^ Shamah, David (7 June 2015). "Artificially intelligent Watson gets Israeli boost as it studies medicine". The Times of Israel.
  7. ^ "Forbes Power Women 2019". Forbes Israel. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  8. ^ "100 המשפיעים של מגזין TheMarker". themarker (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2022-04-10.
  9. ^ "50 המשפיעות של גלובס". גלובס (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2022-04-10.
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