The Academia Europaea Barcelona Knowledge Hub is pleased to announce the award of the Barcelona Hypatia European Science Prize 2023 to Professor Nuria Oliver, international expert in artificial intelligence.

Professor Oliver, scientific director and co-founder of the Ellis Foundation Alicante and a member of the Informatics section of Academia Europaea since 2018, received the award together with an endowment of 30,000 euros, for her research in the development of new methods and AI systems to promote a positive social impact.

With a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and a PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Professor Oliver has focused her research on modelling individual and aggregate human behaviour using machine learning techniques and the creation of intelligent and interactive systems, covering various areas of social impact including health and well-being, financial inclusion and natural disasters.

Among other positions in the telecommunications sector, Professor Oliver, has been scientific director of Telefónica R&D; Scientific and Data Science Director at Vodafone Group (UK), and co-founder and vice-president of ELLIS, The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (Germany).

She is passionate about scientific and technological dissemination, with hundreds of media appearances, being actively committed to attracting young talent – and especially women – to engineering and computer science. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she was commissioner of the Presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana for the Valencian AI Strategy, and especially for the coordination of data science to fight against Covid-19.

The fourth deputy mayor of Barcelona City Council and head of the Department of Science and Universities, Jordi Valls, stressed "the importance of consolidating the European Hypatia prize with the beginning of this second triennium, and doing so by rewarding Dr. Núria Oliver, a world leader in the use of artificial intelligence in different areas that share a common goal: use the potential of artificial intelligence to improve people's quality of life".

Nuria Oliver will receive the award on March 4, in an institutional ceremony chaired by Mayor Jaume Collboni in the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council. Prof. Oliver will give a lecture on her career and its milestones under the title "Towards a Socially Sustainable Artificial Intelligence".

The Hypatia Prize#

The Hypatia Prize was launched in 2018 as one of the actions of the first Barcelona Science Plan which seeks to boost the city of Barcelona as a European capital of science. The prize, in the amount of 30,000 euros, recognises an outstanding researcher who has conducted her/his career primarily in Europe and at the highest international level, with a strong influence on various fields of knowledge and a positive impact on society.

The 2023 award was given to a researcher in the field of Science and Technology, starting a new triennial cycle that will continue for the next 2 years, successively awarding a person from the field of Life and Health Sciences (2024) and the field of Humanities and Social Sciences (2025). In the first edition (2018; Science and Technology), the Hypatia prize was awarded to mathematician László Lovász; in the second (2019-2020; Life and Health Sciences), virologist Ilaria Capua; and in the third edition (2021; Humanities and Social Sciences), the award was given to philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright.

Academia Europaea-Barcelona Knowledge Hub#

The Academia Europaea-Barcelona Knowledge Hub was launched in 2013 and is currently located at the headquarters of the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation. Its activity is devided between five strategic lines: the promotion of interdisciplinary scientific dialogue, citizen participation, the exploration of synergies between science and art, the visibility of the Catalan research ecosystem in the international context, and the recognition of academic excellence, where the European Hypatia Science Prize is framed.

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Academia Europaea Barcelona Knowledge Hub
Follow the ceremony
Read an interview with Nuria Oliver conducted by the Cardiff Knowledge Hub