PROMISE Engineering Alumni Speaker Series: Dr. Ordóñez

Dr. Patricia Ordóñez Franco is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras and thereby fulfilling two lifelong dreams and an unexpected midlife one – living in a Spanish-speaking country, having the opportunity to make a greater difference in the world, and becoming a professor. Her research interests are in applying machine learning, data mining, and visualization to multivariate time series analysis, specifically to large repositories of clinical data (now known as Biomedical Data Science), creating a voice programming language (assistive technology), and advocating and working towards high-quality computer and data science education for all.

She was the first Latina to graduate with a Ph.D. from the College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the first female Associate Professor to earn tenure in the Computer Science Department at the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras (UPRRP).

Dr. Ordóñez is a former National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She is serving as General Chair at the 2022 Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference and is a former co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). She is the recipient of a Great Minds in STEM 2021 HENAAC Award in Education and the 2021 Access Computing Building Capacity Award. She is passionate about creating a more inclusive culture in computing and STEM and about bridging the digital and data divide in global healthcare and education.