USC Viterbi faculty member Bistra Dilkina has been appointed as a CREATE Senior Research Fellow. Dr. Bistra Dilkina is the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Early Career Chair in Computer Science, an Associate Professor of the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science and of the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She is also co-Director of USC’s Center for AI in Society (CAIS). Her research focuses on advancing AI through hybridization of machine learning and discrete optimization, pioneering research in machine-learning-guided combinatorial solvers and decision-focused learning.
Dr. Dilkina’s applied research uses AI to understand the impacts of climate change on energy, water, habitat, and human migration, optimizing fortification of lifeline infrastructures for disaster resilience. Her work is funded by the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI, a DHS University Center of Excellence, COE). She also works with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to develop a planning tool to identify the layout of a seismically robust pipe network to ensure direct water supply to critical customers and certain proximity to water sources for residential areas in the case of an earthquake.
Along with CIRI, CREATE collaborates with the COEs at Northeastern University (SENTRY), University of Alaska at Anchorage (ADAC-ARCTIC), and Arizona State University (CAOE) through DHS-funded projects.
Posted July 17, 2024