2022 HENAAC Awards
Education: Ph.D., Genetics and Bioinformatics, Stanford University; Master’s, Medicine, Stanford University; Bachelor’s, Biochemistry and Bachelor’s, Genetics, Arizona State University.
Dr. Kim Kukurba is a pioneer expanding the frontiers of artificial intelligence and machine learning, two distinct but related fields that data scientists use to empower computers and robots to behave in ways that both mimic and go beyond human capabilities. She leads a team collaborating across Raytheon Technologies’ missiles and defense business dedicated to researching, developing, and deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning products.
Her contributions earned her the prestigious designation of a Raytheon Technologies Fellow in 2019, a distinction reserved for the tiny percentage of the technical staff skilled enough to pass a grueling selection process. Those that do are experts, innovators, and leaders with far-reaching influence over the people, processes, and the products produced company-wide. They are also entrusted with expanding the company’s technical capabilities and imparting their skills and best practices to succeeding generations of engineers and scientists.
Born into an Arizona family with Hispanic and Ukrainian roots, Dr. Kukurba’s journey to the apex of artificial intelligence and machine learning was somewhat circuitous. She was inspired to pursue science at a young age and chose to pursue biochemistry & genetics at Arizona State University, graduating from a dual degree program in 2007.
As an undergrad, Dr. Kukurba worked in a research laboratory at the Biodesign Institute’s Center for computational functional genomics, where she gained hands-on experience as a paid researcher. This opportunity also exposed her to the world of scientific conferences and presentations, in which she co-authored and presented two peer-reviewed science publications.
She then took her talents to Palo Alto to pursue a Master’s degree in medicine at Stanford University, which she followed up with a Ph.D. from the school’s highly competitive genetics and bioinformatics program. It was here that she began to first explore advanced data science, developing statistical methods and algorithms to characterize how genomic variants affected human health for personalized medicine.
Her work resulted in several first-author publications in peer-reviewed journals, and her collaborations with other scientists were published in over ten peer-reviewed journals, including both Nature and Science. She was awarded the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, which funded her research and provided a springboard that propelled her away from genetics and into the burgeoning fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Broadly speaking, artificial intelligence is wide set of technologies enabling systems to analyze and contextualize data to provide information or automatically trigger actions without human interference. Machine learning is employed to achieve and advance artificial intelligence by developing and deploying algorithms to learn insights and recognize patterns from data, and then automatically apply those insights into the system to make them increasingly more efficient and effective at making decisions.
By studying and experimenting with A.I. and machine learning, Dr. Kukurba and her teams test the limits of how much they can improve the perception, cognition, and action of particular systems. Her research promises to bring quantum leaps in performance across Raytheon Technologies’ wide range of critical defense systems and the facilities where they’re designed and manufactured.
In 2015, Dr. Kukurba began her post-graduate career as a data scientist in the Information Technology Leadership Development Program at Raytheon. From there, she pursued leadership roles with increasing technical responsibilities, including Principal Investigator for internal and contract research & development efforts with customers such like Air Force Research Laboratories. She has also served as technical lead for the business’ retention and recruitment analytics team, chaired of the enterprise-wide Artificial Intelligence Technology Interest Group, and instructed A.I. and machine learning bootcamps.
Dr. Kukurba punctuated her status as a premier scientist in her field in 2017 when she submitted a project for a Raytheon Innovation Challenge on the applications of human-machine teaming solutions. After a rigorous competition, her project, entitled “Defect/Test Reduction Empowered by Analytics and Machine-Learning,” or DREAMachine for short, was selected as a finalist. She collaborated with colleagues from across the company to refine and enhance the technical and business approach for the project, which resulted in DREAMachine selected for funding. A subsequent Raytheon Innovation Challenge project was selected in 2019, this one on the application of deep learning and natural language processing to accurately classify documents for their export-controlled text content. This was a critical capability to overcome challenges posed by export control regulations, and it was accomplished by automating document classification. This represented significant business cost savings company-wide.
With multiple trade secrets and one U.S. patent under her belt, Dr. Kukurba has earned recognitions from Raytheon Technologies that include the 2020 CIO Enterprise Excellence Award, the 2019 IT Excellence Award, and the 2017 Raytheon Innovation Challenge Project of the Year. In addition, her work applying machine learning in the factory has been published in ‘Raytheon Technology Today.’
Throughout her journey, Dr. Kurkurba has always remembered the importance of giving back through outreach efforts, particularly those focused on promoting STEM in underrepresented and underserved communities. As a young child, she recalls accompanying her mother to school science fairs and outreach events where she volunteered to help with hands-on activities. Continually in awe of her mother’s example of balancing a career, motherhood, and giving back, Dr. Kurkurba aims to follow in her footsteps whenever she can.
While in graduate school at Stanford, Dr. Kukurba served as a mentor for Teaching Girls to Code, volunteered for the LISTAS Young Latinas in STEM conference, and served as a mentor and leader for the Stanford Bioscience Student Association.
At Raytheon Technologies, she’s participated at outreach efforts through employee resource groups for women (RWN) and Hispanics (HOLA). In addition, she has served as a class lead for Imagine Your STEM Future, where she taught weekly hands-on STEM activities to high school girls at underserved high schools. She also serves as a Women in Science & Engineering (WISE) program mentor to undergraduate students, has supported Girl Scouts of USA events and even served as a Grace Hopper Conference for Women in Computing Data Science track reviewer.
Dr. Kukurba is a proud wife and mother raising two grade school-aged children not far from where she grew up. Her passion for her work and her commitment to paying it forward will continue to benefit Raytheon Technologies, the Hispanic community, and our country for years to come.