Prof. Dr. Paloma Diaz is a Full Professor of Computational Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Computer Science and Engineering Department of the University Carlos III de Madrid. She was the first female Dean of the School of Engineering, a centre that offers more than 20 bachelor’s and masters in different areas of engineering and science. She has also exerted leadership as the Vice-rector of the UC3M Colmenarejo Campus, where studies from engineering, laws, social sciences and humanities are offered, and in the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation as Director of the Information Technologies and Services for the Society Research Program, a multidisciplinary program aimed at promoting research with social impact.

She served on international committees such as the DEI ad-hoc committee of the IEEE Education Society and the ACM Europe womENcourage executive committee, as well as Director of the UC3M-Telefonica Chair on Women and Technology, positions that demonstrate her commitment to making engineering more diverse and inclusive. In her pursuit of building a more global perspective, she was a visiting scholar at the Information Science and Technology College of PSU for two academic years, the MAGIC LAB at the University of British Columbia, and the ViSUS Institute at Stuttgart University. Since 1997, she has led the Interactive Systems research group, which focuses on designing digital solutions for various domains, including crisis informatics, e-learning, health, industry, and cultural heritage.

She has led international, national, and regional projects and published over 250 articles in journals, conferences, and books. Her teaching profile includes creativity for industrial engineers, interaction design, human-computer interaction, programming, and data structures. She is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Education Society for her research on the affordable use of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality in education.