Vanessa Frías-Martínez is a professor in the College of Information and UMIACS at the University of Maryland, where she leads the Urban Computing Lab. Her research focuses on the development of computational models to understand and predict human behaviors in the built environment as well as on the design of tools to aid decision makers build more equitable and resilient communities. 

Frías-Martínez is the recipient of multiple National Science Foundation awards, including the prestigious CAREER award. Prior to academia, she spent five years at Telefonica Research. She received her PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University.