Biotech Innovator Dr. Zack Abbott added to LRC Board of Directors
May 20, 2020
Biotech Innovator Dr. Zack Abbott added to LRC Board of Directors
May 20, 2020
Biotech Innovator Dr. Zack Abbott added to LRC Board of Directors
May 20, 2020
Team News
May 3, 2021
LRC TEAM MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Welcome to the LRC Team Member Spotlight Series, where each month we'll highlight the accomplishments and contributions of the various scientists, fellows and thought leaders who contribute to the LRC’s groundbreaking and disruptive research.
In our second edition of the LRC’s Team Member Spotlight, we are excited to feature Dr. José Jaramillo-Villegas. Dr. Jaramillo-Villegas is the LRC’s first Senior Fellow based in Colombia who will help strengthen the organization the region. José is a 2012 Fullbright Scholar with a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University. His scientific interests include applying artificial intelligence and quantum information science to solve complex problems in biology, ecology and evolution.
Read on to learn more about José.
LRC Team Member Spotlight | May 3, 2021
José Jaramillo-Villegas
Senior Fellow, AI & Quantum Computing, LRC
José brings a strong background in high-performance computing, photonics and quantum computing to the LRC. Jose’s work will help us build efficient computational pipelines to enhance our research at LRC and will help us move forward the LRC's initiatives on biological complexity and AI.”
José Jaramillo-Villegas was born in 1980 in Pereira, Colombia, a city located in the middle of the coffee region. Dr. Jaramillo completed his undergrad in Electronics Engineering in 2004 at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali, Colombia. The same year, Dr. Jaramillo started as a computer engineering lecturer at Universidad Tecnologica de Pereira. There, he founded a Research Group called Sirius, named after the brightest star in the sky. Sirius developed multiple research projects related to FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) systems, high-performance computing, and bioinformatics.
In 2007, Dr. Jaramillo cofounded Duto, a startup that developed a system called Iris. This system enables blind people to see colors and shapes with a haptic computer interface. Duto received international recognition due to its high social impact. Entrepreneurship competitions in Panama, Sweden, Malaysia, and Taiwan conferred to Duto multiple awards. Iris was deployed in various schools in Colombia to enable blind students to access visual pedagogical content in the classrooms.
In 2010, Sirius, led by Dr. Jaramillo, was awarded funding by Colciencias, the Colombian Science Funding Agency, to develop Intelligent Transportation Systems. In this project, Sirius developed traffic light controllers with sensors and cameras with computer vision and artificial intelligence. The following year, Sirius designed and developed a Traffic Control Center and deployed its traffic controller for the city of Pereira.
In 2012, the U.S. Department of State awarded Dr. Jaramillo with the Fulbright Scholarship to pursue his Ph.D. at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. During his doctoral studies, Dr. Jaramillo worked under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Weiner. His research focused on developing new light sources using integrated photonic devices for high bandwidth coherent optical communication and quantum computing. Purdue University awarded Dr. Jaramillo with the Bilsland Scholarship. During this time, Dr. Jaramillo coauthored more than 15 scientific articles published in high-impact photonics journals.
In 2020, Dr. Jaramillo joined LRC Systems to research artificial intelligence and quantum computing applied to the study of evolution and drug discovery. In 2021, he cofounded Parallel Chemistry with Dr. Shailesh Date and Dr. John Realpe-Gómez. Parallel Chemistry aims to accelerate the drug discovery process, reduce development costs and time to market. PC is developing tools to evaluate in-silico binding optimization, synthetic accessibility, pharmacokinetics, and off-target effects for millions of molecules using deep learning and quantum computing algorithms.
On Dr. Jaramillo's role at the LRC, Dr. John Realpe-Gómez, Associate Director at the LRC shares: “José brings a strong background in high-performance computing, photonics and quantum computing to the LRC," shares "José’s work will help us build efficient computational pipelines to enhance our research at LRC and will help us move forward the LRC's initiatives on biological complexity and AI.”
We are grateful to have Dr. Jaramillo aboard and look forward to great things with José on our team.