SMU Professor and NASA Collaborators Awarded Patent for Alexa-like Virtual Research Assistant

Jia Zhang, PhD, MS

Jia Zhang, the Cruse C. and Marjorie F. Calahan Centennial Chair in Engineering and professor in the Department of Computer Science in SMU Lyle’s School of Engineering, was recently awarded a patent along with NASA collaborators for developing an intelligent, virtual, personalized assistant for Earth science research. MATA, which is the Sanskrit name for the Earth, provides conversational computing that allows users to type or verbally ask questions through a computer or mobile phone.

“By developing a virtual assistant that continuously integrates community intelligence, provides personalized research assistance in a conversational manner and is geo-spatially and space-time aware, we can build better collaboration within the Earth science community,” Zhang said. “Our goal is to help scientists leverage collective knowledge and data to better understand the Earth and climate change.”