Yoelle Maarek facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yoelle Maarek
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| יואל מארק | |
Maarek in 2017
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| Born | June 1, 1962 |
| Alma mater | Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Pierre and Marie Curie University |
| Known for | Information Retrieval |
| Awards | ACM Fellow (2013), US National Academy of Engineering (2021) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer Science |
| Institutions | Amazon, Yahoo, Google, IBM |
Yoelle Maarek is a super smart computer scientist who was born in Tunis, a city in Tunisia. She is famous for her work in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and information retrieval. This means she helps computers find information really fast, just like when you search for something online!
Yoelle has worked for some of the biggest tech companies in the world. These include Amazon, Yahoo, Google, and IBM. She has held important leadership roles at these companies. Today, she is the Chief Researcher of AI/IR for the Technology Innovation Institute.
About Yoelle Maarek
Her Early Life
Yoelle Maarek was born on June 1, 1962, in Tunis. When she was just one year old, her family moved to France. Her dad, Armand, was a civil engineer. Her mom, Claire, volunteered for groups that supported Israel in France.
Yoelle went to college at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris. She also earned a special degree from Pierre and Marie Curie University. Later, she started her advanced studies at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Israel. She focused on programming languages.
During her studies, she spent a year at Columbia University in New York. There, she learned about search engines from Professor Gail Kaiser. When she returned to Israel to finish her doctorate in 1989, she decided to change her focus. She wanted to research search engines, working with Professor Daniel M. Berry.
Her Amazing Career
After finishing her doctorate, Yoelle went back to the United States. She started working at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York. At IBM, she led the team that created the company's very first search engine, which was called "Guru." She worked at IBM from 1989 until 2006. She became a highly respected engineer there before moving to Google.
In 2006, Yoelle started the Google Haifa Engineering Center in Haifa, Israel. She was the Director of Engineering there. One of her main projects was working on autocomplete. This is the feature that suggests words when you start typing in Google or YouTube search bars.
From 2009 to 2017, she worked at Yahoo Research in Israel. Then, in August 2017, she joined Amazon. She became the Vice President of Worldwide Research for Alexa Shopping. This means she helped lead the research for how Alexa helps people shop.
Yoelle has also helped organize important computer science conferences. She was on the board of governors for the Technion, too. In 2013, she was chosen as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. This is a big honor for people who have done a lot for computer science.
Recognitions and Awards
Yoelle Maarek has received many awards and recognitions for her work:
- In 2009 and 2013, a newspaper called Globes named her one of the 50 most influential women in Israel.
- In 2013, she was elected as an ACM Fellow. This is a very special title given to top computer scientists.
- In 2014, an Israeli newspaper called Haaretz listed her as one of 66 Israeli women "worth getting to know."
- Also in 2014, Business Insider ranked her as #12 among the 22 most powerful women engineers in the world.
- In 2021, she was chosen as one of the first members of the SIGIR Academy. She was also elected to the US National Academy of Engineering. This is a huge honor for engineers in the United States.
See also
In Spanish: Yoelle Maarek para niños
