Dr. Michael Pazzani has been UCR’s Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development since 2012, a role in which he was in responsible for areas like procuring research funding such as grants for student projects. As a research scientist with a Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA, Pazzani has worked with other faculty and students to create projects like the ExCITE Incubator in Riverside, a nurturing space for startup companies to expand their business and research.
According to a school-wide email sent by Chancellor Kim Wilcox, Pazzani will be retiring in April of this year, but will continue conducting machine learning research on campus with an emeritus faculty appointment. That email also highlighted Pazzani’s successes, including how “UCR research grants and contracts have increased by more than 68 percent in the past five years,” as well as how he helped achieve “the highest number of NSF Career Awards in the UC system.”
On top of his academic legacy, Pazzani was also the CEO and co-founder of a software development company called AdaptiveInfo, which aims to use machine learning, Pazzani’s focus, to aid in the “personalization of content on mobile devices.” Beyond academia, Pazzani worked in both the public and private sectors. More information about the process is forthcoming.
