Enrico Pontelli

Bio

Enrico Pontelli received his Laurea with Honors in Computer Science from the University of Udine (Italy) in 1991, a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Houston (1992) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from New Mexico State University (1997). He joined the faculty ranks at NMSU in 1997 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Computer Science. He was tenured in 2002 and reached the highest faculty rank (Regents Professor) in 2014. He served the Department of Computer Science as Academic Head for 5 years. He was appointed Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences in 2016. He received several recognitions at NMSU, include the University Research Council award for research accomplishments and the Donald Roush Award for excellence in teaching.

His research interests are broad and span several areas of Computer Science. He has conducted extensive research in the area of Logic and Constraint Programming, focusing on both the theoretical and algorithmic foundations as well as systems development and applications. He has been active in the Artificial Intelligence community, conducting active research related to intelligent autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, with an emphasis on knowledge representation and reasoning. He has explored the use of high performance computing techniques to enhance performance and scalability of AI systems. He has led projects related to bioinformatics, with particular focus on protein structure prediction and phylo-informatics. Finally, his research has explored various aspecs of assistive technologies, with an emphasis on the development of technologies to aid students with visual impairments.

His research has been supported by grants from NSF, NIH and the Department of Education - totalling over $25M. He is the recipient of a NSF Career award. He served as the director of the NMSU Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (2009-2014) and he is the founder and director of the NMSU interdisciplinary Center of Research Excellence in Design of Intelligent Technologies for Smartgrids (iCREDITS). He is the NMSU lead of the New Mexico SMART Grid Center, funded by NSF EPSCoR. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed publications.

He has been passionate for more than 15 years in exploring issues of computer science education and broadening participation in computing. He is the founder and director of the Young Women in Computing Program, which has served since 2006 over 15,000 students and has advanced NMSU in 2019 as the the 21st college in the nation with highest women enrollment in computer science. He joined CAHSI as the NMSU representative in 2009. Before then, he led the Computer Science Pathways program at NMSU, focused on advancing Hispanic and Native American students in computing (1999-2004).