Aragon is the co-inventor (with Raimund Seidel) of a data structure, the treap, which has been commended for its elegance and efficiency, and is now widely used in production applications ranging from wireless networking to memory allocation to fast parallel aggregate set operations. Her work on the Sunfall data visualization and workflow management system for the Nearby Supernova Factory helped advance the study of supernovae in order to reduce the statistical uncertainties on key cosmological parameters that categorize dark energy, one of the grand challenges in physics today.

In 2008, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the US government on outstanding scientists in the early stages of their careers.

Aragon's research has been recognized with over $28M in grants from federal agencies, private foundations, and industry, and has garnered six Best Paper awards since 2004. She is a 2017-18 Fulbright Scholar and a Distinguished Member of the ACM. In 2015, she received the HCDE Faculty Innovator in Research Award from the University of Washington. She won the Distinguished Alumni Award in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2013, the Faculty Innovator in Teaching Award from her department at UW that same year, and was named one of the Top 25 Women of 2009 by Hispanic Business Magazine.

Aragon has an interdisciplinary background, including over 15 years of software development experience in industry and NASA, and a three-year stint as the founder and CEO of a small company.

Aragon is also active in program service and supporting diversity in computing. She is a founding member of Latinas in Computing, was a board member of the Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W), a founding member of Berkeley Lab's Computing Sciences Diversity Working Group and Women in Science Council, chair of the IEEE Computer Society's Entrepreneur and Pioneer Awards committee, and has served as a reviewer and program committee member for numerous computer science conferences.

Bio - 200 words

Cecilia Aragon is Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering and Director of the Human-Centered Data Science Lab at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2004, and her B.S. in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on human-centered data science, an emerging field at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI) and data science.

Aragon has authored or co-authored over 130 peer-reviewed articles, 3 books, 4 patents, and over 140 other publications in the areas of data science, HCI, machine learning, and astrophysics. In 2016, she became the first Latina to be named to the rank of Full Professor in the College of Engineering at UW in its hundred-year history. Aragon is a Senior Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute at UW, Distinguished Member of the ACM, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the US government on outstanding scientists in the early stages of their careers. Her latest book, Human-Centered Data Science: An Introduction, was released by MIT Press in March 2022.

Bio - 100 words

Cecilia Aragon is Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering and Director of the Human-Centered Data Science Lab at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, with research interests in data science and HCI. She's a Senior Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the US government on outstanding scientists in their early careers. Her latest book, Human-Centered Data Science: An Introduction, was released by MIT Press in March 2022.