Dr. Ovidiu Daescu received the Engineer Diploma in Computer Science and Automation from the Technical Military Academy, Bucharest, Romania in 1991, and MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, IN, USA in 1997 and 2000, respectively. He joined the Department of Computer Science of the University of Texas at Dallas in 2000, where he currently is Professor and Department Head. His ongoing research interests include algorithm engineering, spatial bio-medical computing, smart cities, and applied machine learning. He has published extensively in top venues and his research has been funded by various national, state and local, public and private agencies and corporations.