Carla Gomes is the Ron and Antonia Nielsen Professor of Computing and Information Science at Cornell University, where she directs the Institute for Computational Sustainability and co-directs the AI for Science Institute. She holds a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. Gomes’s research centers on AI, focusing on large-scale knowledge representation, reasoning, machine learning, decision-making, and optimization. She is a pioneering figure in the emerging field of Computational Sustainability, which seeks to leverage AI and computational methods to tackle critical environmental, economic, and societal challenges, guiding us toward a sustainable future. Gomes was the lead PI of two NSF Expeditions in Computing focusing on Computational Sustainability. Gomes is the recipient of the 2021 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Feigenbaum Prize for her “high-impact contributions to AI, including innovations in constraint reasoning, optimization, and the integration of reasoning and learning, as well as for founding Computational Sustainability.” Gomes also received the 2022 AAAI Allen Newell Award for her interdisciplinary contributions, bridging computer science with other fields. Gomes is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

AI2050 Project

Gomes is passionate about advancing AI for a sustainable future. Her AI2050 project focuses on sustainability challenges such as the UN’s 30×30 biodiversity conservation goal, characterizing biochemical diversity at the molecular level, and rethinking worldwide hydropower expansion to meet energy demands while minimizing adverse impacts on people and nature. Gomes’s research confronts current AI/ML limitations for scientific discovery and decision-making by adopting an integrated data-and-knowledge-driven AI approach. This approach combines reasoning from first principles with deep learning and Pareto optimization for high-dimensional reasoning and decision-making. Gomes’s work drives transformative changes in sustainability practices through innovative AI methodologies.