Manuela Veloso, the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computer Science and head of the Machine Learning Department, will take a leave of absence to join J.P. Morgan as its head of artificial intelligence research, beginning July 1.

In this newly created position, Veloso will establish an AI research capability at J.P. Morgan, Wall Street's leading technology bank and the largest U.S. bank by assets. The company already has started to apply machine learning technology across its businesses; Veloso will lead efforts to identify additional opportunities for artificial intelligence and design solutions that could transform financial services.

In addition to partnering with J.P. Morgan's existing data analytics and quantitative research teams, Veloso will seek collaborations with universities and research institutions.

Veloso’s move illustrates the close ties Carnegie Mellon faculty and researchers have to both the private and public sectors, where ideas born in laboratories are translated to products, services and policies that benefit society. A number of CMU faculty have taken leaves over the years to serve in government, the tech industry and other positions before returning to the university.

Veloso joined the faculty of the Computer Science Department in 1992 after earning her Ph.D. there. She has led the Machine Learning Department since 2016. She is renowned for her research on teams of autonomous agents, exemplified by her work on robot soccer, and pioneered the concept of symbiotic autonomy with her CoBot robots. She is a past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and of the RoboCup Federation. She is a fellow of the ACM, AAAI, AAAS and IEEE.