CAROLINA RUIZ

Carolina Ruiz, PhD
Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences
Harold L. Jurist '61 and Heather E. Jurist Dean's Professor, Department of Computer Science
Core Faculty Member, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program
Core Faculty Member, Data Science Program
Core Faculty Member, Neuroscience Program
Core Faculty Member, Healthcare Delivery Institute (HDI)

    CONTACT INFORMATION

Department of Computer Science
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, MA 01609. USA

Phone: 508-831-5640 Fax: 508-831-5776

    HIGHLIGHTS

Research and Teaching Interests: Machine Learning; Data Mining; Artificial Intelligence; Applications to Medicine and Behavioral Health; Transdiciplinary Research; Vertical Integration of Research Teams from PhD to High School Students; STEM Education and Research.

• Media Coverage:

  • Media Coverage of my Research

• Research on Machine Learning in Medicine:

  • Research on Machine Learning in Human Sleep:

    • Research on Interpretable Deep Learning on Human Sleep:
      • BIOKDD 2018, in conjunction with the KDD2018 conference
      • Deep Learning Day at the KDD 2018 conference
      • Health Day at the KDD 2018 conference
      • IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics article. In press, pre-print available here. 2019.

    • Research on Modeling and Clustering of Human Sleep Time Series

    • Media coverage of my sleep research.

  • Research on Machine Learning in Pain Medicine (link forthcoming)

  • Research on Machine Learning in Behavioral Medicine and Mobile Health:

    • Machine learning algorithms for predicting and preventing overeating:
      • HICSS-2017, European Journal on Nutrition, WISH-AMIA-2017.
      • Research featured in numerous TV, radio, newspapers and online news outlets

    • Machine learning algorithms for improving sleep behavior and health:
      • HICSS-2018, HICSS-2017, AMCIS 2016.

  • Invited Co-Editor of the special issue on "Wearable Sensor Signal Processing for Smart Health" of Elsevier's Smart Health Journal.

  • Program Co-Chair of the 9th International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF2016), Rome, Italy February 2016.

  Read more about my research on machine learning in sleep medicine, stroke, and cancer

• Interdisciplinary Biology - Computer Science Research

  • Co-PI in National Science Foundation STEM+C grant NSF#1742446. "Building Educational Bridges between Computer Science and Biology through Transdisciplinary Teamwork and Modular Curriculum Design". $1,228,848. Sept. 2017 - Aug. 2020.
    • Media coverage of this grant.

  • Research on Computational Methods to Study Biodiversity: The Beecology Citizen Science Project
    • Media coverage of this research.

• Research Advisor of Graduate, Undergraduate and High School Students

  • PhD and MS Research Advising:

    • Have advised and co-advised over 24 WPI PhD and MS students working on machine learning research.

    • Have been member of the PhD committees of 16 PhD students.

    Read more about my graduate research advising

  • Undergraduate Research Advising:

    • Undergraduate Senior Theses Advisor: Have advised and co-advised over 66 WPI undergraduate students working on machine learning research for their undergraduate theses.

    • NSF REU Advisor: Have advised 6 NSF REU students working on machine learning research under National Science Foundation grant NSF#CNS-1560229 "REU SITE: Data Science Research for Safe, Sustainable and Healthy Communities". $358,574. May 2016 - April 2019.

    • Luce Scholars Advisor and Mentor: Have been research advisor for 3 undergraduate female Luce Scholar and mentor for 2 more as co-PI of the Henry Luce Foundation grant "Clare Boothe Luce Undergraduate Research Awards in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, and Robotics Engineering". $204,000. Jan. 2016 - Dec. 2018.

    Read more about my undergraduate research advising

  • High School Research Advisor:

    • Director of the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Summer Research Experience (BCB-SRE) for High School Students
      • 5-week program, Summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018.

    Read more about my K-12 outreach.

• Project-based Learning

  • Faculty member of the WPI Institute for Project Based Learning (IPBL)
    • Faculty co-presenter and co-facilitator, 2-day workshop on Project-Based Learning at the Vellore Institute of Technology. Vellore, India. April 2019.
    • Faculty coach of a national university team attending the WPI Summer Institute for Project-based Learning, Summer 2018.
    • Faculty coach of an international university team attending the WPI Summer Institute for Project-based Learning, Summer 2017.

  • Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Project Advisor:

    • Have advised or co-advised over 56 WPI undergraduates on applied research that connects science and technology with societal issues and human needs. Some of those projects have been conducted on campus, and others abroad at:
      • WPI Project Center in Wellington, New Zealand. 25 students. Jan-March, 2018.
      • WPI Project Center in London, England. 18 students. May-July, 2014.

      Read more about my technology and society undergraduate advising

  Read more about my overall work