Isabel Cruz

{{Short description|American Portuguese computer scientist (died 2021)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Isabel Cruz

| image = Isabel Cruz 2019.jpg

| birth_date =

| birth_place = Lisbon, Portugal

| death_date = September 19, 2021

| death_place =

| fields = Computer Science

| workplaces = {{Plainlist|

}}

| alma_mater = University of Toronto

| doctoral_advisor = Alberto O. Mendelzon

| academic_advisors = Paris Kanellakis (postdoctoral)

| awards = {{Plainlist|

AAAS Fellow
UIC Distinguished Professor

}}

| website = https://www.cs.uic.edu/Cruz/

| occupation = Computer scientist

}}

Isabel Cruz (aka Isabel F. Cruz, Maria Isabel Cruz) (died 2021) was an American Portuguese computer scientist known for her research on databases, knowledge representation, geographic information systems, AI, visual languages, graph drawing, user interfaces, multimedia, information retrieval, and security. She was a University of Illinois Chicago [https://faculty.uic.edu/awards/recognition/uic-distinguished-professors/ Distinguished Professor] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202024115/https://faculty.uic.edu/awards/recognition/uic-distinguished-professors/ |date=February 2, 2023 }}{{Cite web|title=UIC Distinguished Professors {{!}} and a Professor of Computer Science the Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering {{!}}, at the University of Illinois Chicago|url=https://engineering.uic.edu/about/faculty/distinguished/|access-date=2021-09-22|website=engineering.uic.edu}} and a Professor [https://www.cs.uic.edu Computer Science] in the [https://engineering.uic.edu College of Engineering] at the [https://uic.edu/ University of Illinois Chicago]. She was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Life

Cruz was born in Lisbon. In her young life she looked up to Joan of Arc and Marie Curie. Her favorite quotes from Joan & Marie were "All battles are first won or lost, in the mind" and "Have no fear of perfection; you'll never reach it" respectively.{{Cite web |title=Isabel Cruz |url=https://www.tamassia.net/isabel-cruz |access-date=2025-03-17 |website=www.tamassia.net |language=en-US}} completed a MS (1987) and PhD (1993) in computer science at the University of Toronto advised by Alberto O. Mendelzon. She conducted her postdoctoral research at Brown University advised by Paris Kanellakis.{{cite web|url=https://www.tamassia.net/isabel-cruz|title=Isabel Cruz|first=Roberto|last=Tamassia|access-date=2023-05-25}} She was the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 1996. Cruz joined the University of Illinois Chicago College of Engineering in 2001. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2019 and was appointed [https://faculty.uic.edu/awards/recognition/uic-distinguished-professors/ UIC Distinguished Professor] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202024115/https://faculty.uic.edu/awards/recognition/uic-distinguished-professors/ |date=February 2, 2023 }} in 2020. Cruz's research focused on databases, big data, geographic information systems, Semantic Web, and knowledge representation. Towards the end of her career, she hoped that her research in data acquisition could be used to aid in novel solutions for social and humanitarian issues. {{Cite news |date=2022-04-25 |title=Brown CS Remembers Isabel Cruz |url=https://cs.brown.edu/news/2022/04/25/brown-cs-remembers-isabel-cruz/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230801132651/https://cs.brown.edu/news/2022/04/25/brown-cs-remembers-isabel-cruz/ |archive-date=2023-08-01 |access-date=2025-03-17 |language=en}}

She died on September 19, 2021.

Recognition

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,{{citation|url=https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-announces-leading-scientists-elected-2019-fellows|title=AAAS Announces Leading Scientists Elected as 2019 Fellows|publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science|date=26 November 2019|first=Adam D.|last=Cohen}} elected "for her distinguished contributions to visual query languages, information integration and visualization, geospatial computing and for professional leadership in the data management community".{{citation|url=https://today.uic.edu/four-uic-researchers-recognized-as-aaas-fellows|title=Five UIC researchers recognized as AAAS fellows|work=UIC Today|publisher=University of Illinois at Chicago|date=November 27, 2019}}

University of Illinois Chicago Distinguished Professor

University of Illinois Faculty Scholar Award

University of Illinois Chicago Great Cities Institute Faculty Scholar Award

University of Illinois Chicago College of Engineering Faculty Research Award

University of Illinois Chicago Teaching Recognition Program Award

Association for Computing Machinery Recognition of Service Award

National Science Foundation CAREER Award

Personal life

Cruz was married to Roberto Tamassia, also a noted computer scientist. She enjoyed several hobbies such as running, cross country skiing, standup paddle boarding, and classical music.