2019 Winner Trilce Estrada

Trilce Estrada is the 2019 ACM SIGHPC Emerging Woman Leader in Technical Computing award winner. Dr. Estrada is an associate professor in the department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico. She is recognized “for her innovative and transformative deployment of machine learning for knowledge discovery in molecular dynamic simulations and in situ analytics.” 

The Emerging Woman Leader in Technical Computing award is unique in recognizing mid-career women in the technical and high performance computing communities. The award is presented every two years in recognition of the candidate’s impact on her chosen field, as indicated by early career achievements and her commitment to growing our community through service and mentorship. The award is presented at the annual SC conference, the HPC community's most prestigious annual gathering, held this year in Denver, CO, November 17-22 (sc19.supercomputing.org).

Dr. Estrada’s research focuses on designing scalable machine learning techniques that can be applied to data-intensive scientific problems, using distributed systems, mobile devices and crowd sourcing for distributed learning in science and medicine, and introducing automatic decision-making processes to distributed computing environments. Her contributions in computational chemistry have transformed emerging paradigms into successful platforms for scientific discovery. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including an NSF CAREER Award for enabling distributed and in-situ analysis for multidimensional structured data. 

In addition to her work in machine learning and big data techniques, Trilce served for five years as the chair of the International Parallel and Distributed Process Symposium’s PhD Forum, as well as Chair of the Mentor/Protégé program for SC19. She is committed to increasing the participation of women and Latinx in HPC, serving as a role model for other women and minorities, and implementing activities to increase student success at UNM and within the HPC community. 

"SIGHPC believes this award fills a critical need in our community, and I am excited that Dr. Estrada has been selected to receive it in 2019,” commented John West, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and Chair of SIGHPC. “Dr. Estrada’s technical contributions increase the ability of researchers to effectively conduct their work using large-scale computing, and her volunteer contributions in our community provide a model of leadership that includes future generations of leaders as well."

Dr. Estrada received her bachelor’s degree in Informatics at Universidad de Guadalajara, her master’s degree in Computer Science at the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE), and her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Delaware.