Ihab Ilyas
{{short description|Canadian-Egyptian computer scientist (born 1973)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Ihab Ilyas
| image = Professor Ihab F. Ilyas.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1973|5|13}}
| birth_place = Alexandria, Egypt
| nationality = Canadian, Egyptian
| fields = Computer science
| workplaces = University of Waterloo, Apple Inc.
| alma_mater = Purdue University (PhD) Alexandria University (BSc, MSc)
| known_for = Data science, Data cleaning, Data integration
| awards = ACM Fellow, 2020; IEEE Fellow, 2022; C.C. Gotlieb Computer Award, 2024; Royal Society of Canada Fellow, 2024
| website = https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~ilyas/
}}
Ihab Francis Ilyas (born May 13, 1973) is a computer scientist who works in data science. He is currently a professor of computer science in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He also led the Knowledge Platform team at Apple Inc. Ihab is the holder of the Thomson Reuters-NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Data Cleaning at the University of Waterloo.{{Cite news|url=https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/thomson-reuters-and-university-waterloo-fuel-innovation-data|title=Thomson Reuters and University of Waterloo to fuel innovation in data science, finance education {{!}} Waterloo News|date=2016-09-28|work=Waterloo News|access-date=2017-09-01}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/uwaterloo-adds-research-chair-into-data-cleansing/386809|title=UWaterloo adds research chair into data cleansing|work=IT World Canada|access-date=2017-09-01}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=May 20, 2014|title=Chairholder Profile {{!}} Ihab Ilyas {{!}} Thomson Reuters-NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Data Cleaning|url=https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Chairholders-TitulairesDeChaire/Chairholder-Titulaire_eng.asp?pid=1027|access-date=January 13, 2021|website=Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada}}
Ilyas co-founded Tamr Inc., a start-up focusing on large-scale data integration and cleaning, with Andy Palmer and Michael Stonebraker, a Turing Award winner. Ilyas co-founded and was the CEO of Inductiv Inc., an artificial intelligence start-up that uses machine learning to automate the task of identifying and correcting errors in data, which he co-founded with Theodoros Rekatsinas at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Christopher Ré at Stanford University.{{Cite web|title=Waterloo-based AI start-up Inductiv acquired by Apple|url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/news/waterloo-based-ai-start-up-inductiv-acquired-apple|last=|first=|date=May 29, 2020|website=Cheriton School of Computer Science {{!}} University of Waterloo|access-date=May 31, 2020}} Inductiv was acquired by Apple Inc. in May 2020.{{Cite web|title=Apple Buys Machine-Learning Startup to Improve Data Used in Siri|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-27/apple-buys-machine-learning-startup-to-improve-data-used-in-siri|last=|first=|date=May 27, 2020|website=Bloomberg|access-date=May 31, 2020}}{{Cite web|title=Apple just bought another AI startup to help Siri catch up to rivals Amazon and Google|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-buys-ai-startup-inductiv-siri-catch-up-amazon-google-2020-5|last=|first=|date=May 28, 2020|website=Business Insider|access-date=May 31, 2020}}
Education and career
Ilyas was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt. After completing bachelor's and master's degrees at Alexandria University in 1995 and 1999, respectively, he earned a PhD at Purdue University in 2004 under the supervision of Walid Aref and Ahmed K. Elmagarmid.
After his doctoral studies, Ilyas accepted a position in 2004 as a tenure-track professor at the University of Waterloo's David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.
Research contributions
Ilyas is best known for the development of database systems and data science, with emphasis on data quality, data cleaning, managing uncertain data, machine learning for data curation, and rank-aware query processing.
Since 2009, he has focused research on data quality and the technical challenges in building data-cleaning systems. He and his research group introduced novel practical algorithms and system prototypes, which circumvent limitations of previous data-cleaning solutions that either focus narrowly on single types of data errors or ignore real-life considerations that prevent their adoption.
With Theodoros Rekatsinas, Christopher Ré, and Xu Chu, he introduced HoloClean,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020|title=HoloClean: A Machine Learning System for Data Repair and Predictions on Structured Data|url=http://www.holoclean.io|access-date=January 26, 2021|website=HoloClean}} an open-source statistical inference engine to impute, clean and enrich data.
Awards and honours
Ilyas received a Government of Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2008, a provincial program that funds new leading researchers at publicly funded Ontario universities to build a research team. He was named an IBM Canada Advanced Studies Fellow from 2006 to 2010.
Ilyas held a Cheriton Faculty Fellowship{{Cite news|date=2017-02-10|title=David R. Cheriton Faculty Fellowships in Computer Science {{!}} Cheriton School of Computer Science|work=Cheriton School of Computer Science|url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/about/faculty-fellowships-and-awards/david-r-cheriton-faculty-fellowships-computer-science|access-date=2017-09-01|archive-date=2018-06-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612144432/https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/about/faculty-fellowships-and-awards/david-r-cheriton-faculty-fellowships-computer-science|url-status=dead}} at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science from 2013 to 2016 and he received the Google Faculty Award in 2014.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Google Faculty Research Awards, August 2014|url=https://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/googlefras-aug2014.pdf|access-date=January 26, 2021|website=}}
He was named an ACM Distinguished Scientist{{Cite web|title=ACM's Distinguished Computer Scientists, Engineers and Educators Cited for Global Reach, Real-World Impact Association for Computing Machinery|url=http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2014/distinguished-2014|accessdate=2017-09-01|website=www.acm.org|archive-date=2017-09-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170905094229/http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2014/distinguished-2014|url-status=dead}} in 2014, and an ACM Fellow in 2020 for his contributions to data cleaning and data integration.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=January 13, 2021|title=Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor Ihab Ilyas named ACM Fellow|url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/news/cheriton-school-of-computer-science-professor-ihab-ilyas-named-acm-fellow|access-date=January 13, 2021|website=David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science}}{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=January 13, 2021|title=Prof. Ihab F. Ilyas {{!}} ACM Fellows {{!}} Award Winners|url=https://awards.acm.org/award_winners/ilyas_5391412|access-date=January 13, 2021|website=Association for Computing Machinery}} He was also named IEEE Fellow in 2022 for his contributions in data cleaning, data integration and rank-aware query processing{{Cite web|date=2021-11-25|title=Professor Ihab Ilyas named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers|url=https://uwaterloo.ca/computer-science/news/ihab-ilyas-named-fellow-of-the-institute-of-electrical-and-electronics-engineers|access-date=2021-11-25|website=Cheriton School of Computer Science|language=en}}[https://web.archive.org/web/20211124083848/https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/fellows/2022-ieee-fellows-class.pdf IEEE] {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}} and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2024.{{Cite web |title=Professor Ihab Ilyas named Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada {{!}} Cheriton School of Computer Science |url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/news/professor-ihab-ilyas-named-2024-fellow-royal-society-canada |access-date=2024-09-04 |website=cs.uwaterloo.ca |language=en}} In 2024, he also received the 2024 C.C. Gotlieb Computer Award from IEEE Canada in recognition of his contributions to building large-scale machine learning systems for data integration, data cleaning, and knowledge construction.{{Cite web |title=Ihab Ilyas receives C.C. Gotlieb Computer Award for advancing computer science {{!}} Cheriton School of Computer Science |url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/news/ihab-ilyas-receives-cc-gotlieb-computer-award-advancing-cs |access-date=2024-09-04 |website=cs.uwaterloo.ca |language=en}}
Since 2018, Ilyas has held the Thomson Reuters-NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Data Cleaning. In 2020, he was named a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=December 22, 2020|title=Vector welcomes 2020 cohort of faculty affiliates|url=https://vectorinstitute.ai/2020/12/22/vector-welcomes-2020-cohort-of-faculty-affiliates/|access-date=January 26, 2021|website=Vector Institute}}
Service
Ilyas was elected a member of Board of Trustees of the Very Large Data Bases Endowment{{Cite web|url=http://www.vldb.org/trustees.html|title=Board of Trustees|website=www.vldb.org|access-date=2017-09-01}} in 2016 and the Vice Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Management (SIGMOD){{Cite web|url=https://sigmod.org/about-sigmod/|title=About SIGMOD – SIGMOD Website|website=sigmod.org|access-date=2017-09-01}} in 2017.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Cite news|url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/about/people/ilyas|title=Ihab F. Ilyas {{!}} Cheriton School of Computer Science|date=2017-02-08|work=Cheriton School of Computer Science|access-date=2017-09-01}}
- {{Cite web|url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~ilyas/|title=Ihab Francis Ilyas|website=cs.uwaterloo.ca|access-date=2017-09-01}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ilyas, Ihab}}
Category:Egyptian computer scientists
Category:Canadian computer scientists
Category:Egyptian emigrants to Canada
Category:Academic staff of the University of Waterloo
Category:Purdue University alumni
Category:Alexandria University alumni