Career Highlightsand International Recognition

Inaugural Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAIO) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) a first of its kind role in the UC system.
24 years at JPL. Principal scientist (first in the area of "Data Science") and internationally recognized expert in data science, cybersecurity, AI, informatics to multiple domains including Space Science, Earth and Planetary Science, and other industries.
At JPL, conceived and architected and implemented the next generation of Earth Science ground data systems using open source and Apache software from 2005-2009. Delivered and operational on OCO/OCO2 and ACOS, NPP Sounder PEATE, SMAP and developed pipeline to infuse tech across NASA ROSES research ACCESS, AIST and other efforts.
Was the Compute Lead for the Airborne Snow Observatory (ASO) (2013-2015) a next generation Earth Science airborne instrument and mission that was successfully transferred into industry and which provided critical assessments of snow water equivalent (SWE) in the Western US. System was a next generation 24-hour turnaround processing platform that led to IGARSS publications and a successful company spinoff (ASO, Inc. Dr. Tom Painter). I was responsible for the architecture and implementation of the Compute Team.
First NASA member of the Apache Software Foundation. Brought the first NASA project there (OODT) and was its first committee chair. Apache Board of Directors member, 2013-2018.
Inventor, Apache Tika. Wrote definitive guide book "Tika in Action" in 2011 and in 2017 Tika was the key technology to solving the Panama Papers which won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.
Advised 3 Postdocs at USC and JPL, hundreds of Masters Students at USC. Sat on a half a dozen PhD Committees in Computer and Information Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences.
Advised and mentored dozens of students including female, minority (Sri Lanka, etc.) across STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) areas through programs including Apache, and Google Summer of Code.
Created a ~$60 million dollar program between 2012-2018 at NASA JPL across a variety of directorates (3x, 9x, 8x, 4x and 17x) in the areas of data science, informatics, cybersecurity, search and information retrieval with sponsors including NASA, NIH, NLM, NSF, DHS, DARPA, and external customers including Celgene, Chevron responsible for 100+ FTEs of work to advance these areas and discipline at JPL.
Taught graduate courses at USC in Software Architecture, Information Retrieval and Search Engines, Content Detection and Analysis, and in Data Sciences for Large-Scale Environments.
Academic and Publication Highlights: 43 Peer Reviewed Journal Publications including Nature, IEEE Computer - Special Issue on Computing in Astronomy (Co-Editor), IEEE Transactions on Education, IEEE Software, ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, IEEE IT Professional, Earth Science Informatics, IEEE EarthZine, Climate Dynamics, J. BigData, The Astronomical Journal, J. Grid Computing, J. Climate, AMS Bulletin, Remote Sensing of the Environment, EOS Transactions, Space Weather, Planetary and Space Sciences and PLOS One, 7 Book Chapters, 160 Conference Publications and Authored 2 books Tika in Action (2011) and Machine Learning with TensorFlow 2nd edition (2020).

Additional Publications

Highlighted in 2015 NBC News Story on DARPA MEMEX helping to define a new Internet and stopping Human Trafficking (Lolita Lopez, NBC News) and credited with materially contributing to research in the Deep Web and Dark Web.

Nature Paper: A Vision for Data Science (2013) has 209 citations since 2013 and is credited with helping to define the field of Data Science.

Highlighted in la Repubblica, Italy’s wide circulation newspaper regarding work done on DARPA MEMEX in 2017