Professional Achievement I - Military

Over her 16-year career, Dr. Alicia I. Ruvinsky has been a distinguished member of the computer science and data analytics communities.  Her commanding officers have gone so far as to call her “an asset the nation.”

For the past 3 and a half years in the Scientific Software Branch of the I.T. Laboratory at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer Research and Development Center, or ERDC. Dr. Ruvinsky has made significant contributions to numerous programs of national importance.   

She began her higher education by earning a B.S. in Mathematics from Millsaps College where her honors dissertation focused on Set Theory. She then went on to get her M.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Emory University, with an emphasis on the performance of distributed computations for agent-based modeling.  

Dr. Ruvinsky’s Ph.D. work at the University of South Carolina focused on the unique endeavor of applying mathematical and computer science principles to social science problems by incorporating human behavior in mixed human-agent societies. Her diverse background and ability to incorporate humanities into heavily mathematical and science-based problem sets, provide her with a unique perspective when performing decision support modeling efforts.

Since completing her Ph.D., Dr. Ruvinsky has become a leader in the area of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The impact of her work and her technical leadership have helped U.S. joint military programs move forward with integrating advanced data analytics that utilize Machine Learning and A.I. into all-important decision-making processes at multiple strategic levels.

Prior to joining the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Dr. Ruvinsky held a senior software engineering position with Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Labs where she was the project and technical lead on multiple projects valued at up to $3 million and was a contributor to the research, concept, and authorship of multiple white papers, RFI responses, and full proposals to various government contracts like DARPA, IARPA, ONRNR

As certified Project Management Professional, Dr. Ruvinsky has successfully managed numerous multi-agency projects. She’s also the lead or contributing author of four book chapters and 17 refereed proceedings.  Most recently, she’s received the prestigious ERDC Research and Development award, an affirmation of the technical quality of her work.

Dr. Ruvinsky is an outstanding mentor to less experienced team members, and despite an overly full schedule, always makes time for personal interaction and guidance. For the past two summers, she has mentored students from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. These students spend ten weeks at the laboratory and work closely with a mentor to explore new technical areas.

Dr. Ruvinsky is tireless in her efforts to encourage younger colleagues to pursue advanced degrees and to enhance their technical skills with available online courses and other resources.