The Department of Computer Science is delighted to welcome Rajesh Parekh to the External Advisory Council.
Dr. Rajesh Parekh is Engineering Director at Google, where he leads a talented team focusing on algorithmic data curation for Google's Geo products. His team applies various Machine Learning and Computer Vision techniques to build trustworthy and useful understanding of the real world. He is passionate about solving challenging problems that deliver tremendous user impact.
Prior to Google, Dr. Parekh led analytics for Facebook's Video and Applied Machine Learning initiatives. Before Facebook, Dr. Parekh was the Vice President of Data Science at Groupon where he built products for personalization, sales automation, and marketing optimization. He also worked at Yahoo Labs building display advertising targeting products, at Blue Martini Software developing data mining products for e-commerce, and at Allstate solving insurance problems like cross-sell, retention, and fraud.
Dr. Parekh earned his B.E. in Computer Engineering from VJTI, Mumbai and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science focusing on Artificial Intelligence from Iowa State University. He has published over 30 research papers and multiple international patents. He actively participates in the machine learning and data science community.
"On behalf of the Council Chair, George Strawn, and the department, we are honored to welcome Rajesh Parekh to the Council," says Hridesh Rajan, Kingland Professor of Data Analytics or Cognitive Machine Learning and chair of computer science. "With the department's increased focus on Data Science, AI, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, we will significantly benefit from Dr. Parekh's counsel."
The Computer Science External Advisory Council was formed in 2010. The committee assists the department in gaining insight and offering input into the department's mission, programs, and activities; facilitates the department in establishing mutually beneficial partnerships with individuals and corporations; actively participates in department fundraising efforts; and assists in identifying and prioritizing resource needs of the department.