Senén Barro, winner of the SCIE - BBVA Foundation 2020 National Computer Science Prize

National Informatics Prize: the scientific director of CiTIUS, Senén Barro, has been awarded one of the three Research Prizes of the Scientific Computer Society of Spain (SCIE) - BBVA Foundation (2020) awarded this Tuesday by the jury of the fourth edition, meeting by videoconference.

Barro, professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), won the José García Santesmases Award "for his high quality contributions to research in the field of AI, as well as to knowledge transfer". The jury has valued his career in both areas, highlighting that "he not only has a brilliant research curriculum, but he has also been the founder of a reference research group and technology startups". The decision also concludes that "his contributions to the promotion of innovative entrepreneurship and scientific dissemination are internationally recognized"; "he has also been a very active promoter of Computer Science studies from the different relevant positions he has held", it adds. The award is named after one of the pioneers of Computer Science in Spain, who also created the first Hispanic computers.

Honored and happy

"I am very grateful and happy for this distinction, because of its prestige and because it is a prize that is awarded for the importance of research and the transfer of its results, in my case in the field of artificial intelligence". The scientific director of CiTIUS shared his satisfaction at being among the winners of the 2020 edition: "the importance of an award is also given by those who have received it before, and all the previous winners are people of exceptional value, to whose scientific stature I hope to correspond", says Senén Barro. "It is an award that also honors the University of Santiago de Compostela and will serve to give greater visibility and prominence to CiTIUS, the research center in Intelligent Technologies that I direct, and this makes me especially happy".

Prestigious distinctions that look to the CiTIUS

The fourth edition of the Research Awards Sociedad Científica Informática de España (SCIE) - BBVA Foundation thus recognizes for the first time a CiTIUS researcher in one of its two modalities: the National Informatics Awards; a category aimed at recognizing the work of researchers and public and private entities in the area of Informatics that have dedicated their professional career and effort to the study, strengthening and dissemination of this discipline.

However, this is the second occasion in which a scientist from the center appears among the award winners: in 2017, the researcher Alejandro Ramos -currently in postdoctoral stage at CiTIUS-, was recognized as one of the six PhDs awarded in all Spain in the category Young Computer Science Researchers, intended to distinguish innovative and relevant thesis works. The National Informatics Prize awarded to Senén Barro adds a new prestigious recognition to the Singular Center for Research in Intelligent Technologies of the University of Santiago de Compostela (CiTIUS).