Professor Fillia Makedon earns Women in Technology Award from Dallas Business Journal
The University of Texas at Arlington’s Fillia Makedon, an expert and leader in machine learning and assistive technologies, was among 25 women named by the Dallas Business Journal as winners in the sixth annual Women in Technology Awards.
The awards celebrate and honor the tech mavericks who are forging the way for both women and future tech leaders in Dallas-Fort Worth. Makedon, a Jenkins Garrett professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, and her fellow honorees were recognized at a reception May 14 in Dallas.
“The Women in Technology Award is a great honor that demonstrates the vision and appreciation of the Dallas business community for women working in information technology,” Makedon said. “The award provides a great showcase of the serious work and science being done at UTA and in the region and helps motivate others to recognize the work of more women.”
Makedon joined UTA’s College of Engineering in 2006 and served as chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department until 2014. She has secured more than $9.3 million in research funding as principal investigator or co-investigator during her tenure at UTA, and nearly $15 million in her career.
Her recent technology-based research includes using artificial intelligence to assess and enhance cognitive abilities in school-aged children, designing a robot-based vocational assessment and training system and developing a personalized, smart rehabilitation system. All are being conducted through the Heracleia Human Centered Computing Lab.
Makedon, winner of three Fulbright awards, earned her doctoral degree in computer science from Northwestern University. She has received National Science Foundation research awards in the areas of trust management, brain computing, data mining, parallel computing, visualization, knowledge management, cyberphysical systems, major research instrumentation and cyberhuman systems, among others. She has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed research publications.
In addition to the Heracleia Lab, Makedon directs the Center for Assistive Technologies to Enhance Human Performance, or iPerform, a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. She is member of several journal editorial boards and chair of the international PETRA (PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments) conference.
Prior to joining UTA, Makedon was a program director at the National Science Foundation from 2005-06. She was a professor of computer science and founder and director of the Dartmouth Experimental Visualization Laboratory at Dartmouth College from 1991-2006 and an assistant and associate professor at UT Dallas from 1985-91, where she founded the Computer Learning Research Center and helped establish the current UTD Computer Science Department as an independent entity.
Peter Crouch, dean of UTA’s College of Engineering, said that the Women in Technology Award is a great honor for Makedon and reflects UTA’s commitment to health and the human condition and data-driven discovery, two themes of the University’s Strategic Plan 2020.
“We are proud to have Dr. Makedon on our faculty,” Crouch said. “She has an outstanding record of discovery and her research is aimed at making a real difference in the lives of people who, because of illness, age or other factors, can benefit greatly from assistive technologies. This recognition is well-deserved.”
-- written by Jeremy Agor