Ihab Francis Ilyas
Professor Emeritus
Cheriton School of Computer ScienceUniversity of Waterloo
Email: ilyas at uwaterloo.ca
[Short Biography] | [DBLP] | [Google Scholar]
Professor Emeritus
Cheriton School of Computer Science[Short Biography] | [DBLP] | [Google Scholar]
My work focuses on the interplay between data and AI. Throughout my career, I have investigated challenges in data quality, data integration, knowledge graphs, and large-scale data management. I am particularly interested in applying AI and machine learning to complex data problems, while also addressing the challenges of building AI systems in the presence of insufficient, incomplete, or low-quality data. I have been fortunate to work with outstanding students and collaborators and to translate research into industrial systems and successful startups.
| 2024 | CEO & Co-founder, hiddenweights (AI training automation) |
| 2024 | Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada |
| 2022 | IEEE Fellow |
| 2020 | ACM Fellow |
| 2019 | CEO & Co-founder, Inductiv (AI for structured data cleaning) — acquired by Apple |
| 2018 | NSERC–Thomson Reuters Chair of Data Quality |
| 2017 | ACM SIGMOD vice-chair |
| 2016 | VLDB Endowment Board of Trustees |
| 2015 | ACM SIGMOD Best Demo Award |
| 2014 | Google Faculty Award · ACM Distinguished Scientist · NSERC Discovery Accelerator |
| 2013 | Co-founder, Tamr (ML for large-scale data integration) · Cheriton Faculty Fellowship |
| 2008 | Ontario Early Researcher Award |
| 2006 | IBM CAS Faculty Fellow (2006–2010) |
Data Cleaning — ACM Books.
Ihab F. Ilyas and Xu Chu.
hiddenweights — An AI startup to fully automate AI training, founded 2024.
Inductiv — Waterloo-based startup on using AI for structured data cleaning, founded 2019, based on HoloClean, an open-source platform for ML-based data prep and prediction. Acquired by Apple.
Tamr — A leading startup applying machine learning to large-scale data integration, founded 2013.