Dr. Carlos Monroy '10, data scientist at Rice University's Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship, has been selected to participate in the 2nd Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) to be held Sept. 21-26, 2014 at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Winners of the esteemed Abel Prize, Fields Medal, Nevanlinna Prize, and ACM Turing Award (considered the "Nobel" prizes in Mathematics and Computer Science) along with 200 of the bright new generation of computer scientists and mathematicians worldwide are invited to participate in HLF.
The HLF's goal is to promote mathematics and computer science by bringing together the most promising researchers from around the world with the most prestigious award winners in their fields. Through the interaction, it is hoped the young researchers will be inspired by the prize winning laureates and that the laureates will pass along the torch to the next generation of scientists.
"For me it is a great honor to attend such a unique event," said Monroy. "Reading the names of the participating laureates, one realizes that they are pioneers who have made some of the most fundamental contributions to the field. As a computer scientist, being able to personally get to know and talk to them is priceless. In addition to their inspiring stories, I am fascinated with the vision of the Forum's founder, Mr. Klaus Tschira, who sees the forum as an encounter for fostering inspiration and friendship among participants."
Monroy's current research includes learning analytics, big data, and information visualization. His areas of interest are data mining, information retrieval and visualization, digital humanities and multidisciplinary collaboration. For more than fifteen years, his work and research have enabled numerous interdisciplinary collaborations with domain experts in education, linguistics, art history and nautical archaeology. In addition to English, he speaks, Spanish, Italian, French, and a little German and Catalan.
In 2002 and 2010, respectively, Monroy received a master's and a doctoral degree in computer science from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Prior to his studies at Texas A&M, he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala. Monroy is still affiliated with the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries at Texas A&M University.