Research Scientists

DSI interprets “research scientists” broadly in order to include non-traditional types of academics, including:

• Researchers who advance the frontiers of data science through foundational

research contributions. These researchers lead their own research agenda by participating in, organizing, and managing independent research initiatives.

• Researchers who are “bilingual” experts in both data science and a specific

domain, and drive an independent research agenda at the intersection of both.

• Experts in data science specifically focused on “translating” state-of-the-

art knowledge in data science and collaborating with domain experts to lead advances in both data science and domain disciplines. They work across domains and might be called an “applied data scientist” in industry.

• People who contribute to the computational and data infrastructure needs of

data scientists to have broad and real-world impact, such as through opensource projects. DSI views research scientists as comparable to tenure-track faculty in terms of the excellence of their contributions to the university and to the field of data science.

Ipek Ensari | Associate Research Scientist

Ensari is co-Principal Investigator on the NIH-funded project “Data-Powered Personalized Exercise. Recommendations for Endometriosis Pain Management.” She also supports PhendoPHL, provides expertise in physical activity and data science, and participates in activities of the Precision in Symptom Self-Management (PriSSM) Center, including its Information Visualization Design Studio.

Kriste Krstovski | Associate Research Scientist in DSI

and Associate Research Scholar in Business

Krstovski works with researchers from DSI and Business to help them structure their research data, develop appropriate statistical models, and help identify students who can implement the models and run experiments.

Susan McGregor | Associate Research Scholar

McGregor works at the intersection of data science and media. She is co-Principal Investigator of the NSF collaborative award, “Cryptographic Provenance for Digital Publishing.” The project involves designing, testing, and implementing cryptographic tools to secure modern digital publication systems. She leads a team that will integrate cryptography with user interface design to create a prototype that accurately and verifiably conveys provenance and integrity guarantees.

Smaranda Muresan | Research Scientist

Muresan is co-Principal Investigator on awards funded by NIH and NSF and advises Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers in the area of natural language processing, specifically computational models of understanding language in context with applications to computational social science and education. She is an Amazon Scholar.

Zenna Tavares | Associate Research Scientist

Tavares is jointly appointed with the Zuckerman Institute and focuses on research related to computational cognitive science aimed at better understanding the principles governing human reasoning, learning and knowledge. He has expertise in causal inference and probabilistic programming.