Dr. Marco Valtorta is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing at the University of South Carolina. He received a laurea degree with highest honors in electrical
engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, in 1980. After his
graduate work in Computer Science at Duke University, he joined the
Commission of the European Communities in Brussels, Belgium, where he
worked as a project officer for the European Strategic Programme in
Information Technologies from 1985 to 1988.
In August 1988, he joined the faculty at UofSC in the Department of
Computer Science, where he primarily does research in Artificial
Intelligence. His first research result, known as “Valtorta’s theorem” and
obtained in 1980, was recently (2011) described as “seminal” and “an
important theoretical limit of usefulness” for heuristics computed by
search in an abstracted problem space. Most of his more recent research
has been in the area of uncertainty in artificial intelligence. His proof with
graduate student Vimin Huang of the completeness of Pearl’s do-calculus
of intervention in 2006 settled a 13-year old conjecture. His students have
been best paper award winners at the Conference on Uncertainty in
Artificial Intelligence (1993, 2006) and the International Conference on
Information Quality (2006). He was undergraduate director for the
Department of Computer Science from 1993 to 1999. He was awarded the
College of Science and Mathematics Outstanding Advisor Award in 1997.
In addition to his teaching and research activity, he has served in
numerous service capacities at the departmental (e.g., chair of the tenure
and promotion committee and of the colloquium committee), college (e.g
., College of Engineering and Computing scholarship committee), and
university level (e.g., faculty senator, committee on curricula and courses,
committee on instructional development, university committee on tenure
and promotion). In April 2016, Valtorta was elected chair of the university
faculty senate and became chair in August 2017 for a two-year term.
Dr. Marco Valtorta is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing at the University of South Carolina. He received a laurea degree with highest honors in electrical
engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, in 1980. After his
graduate work in Computer Science at Duke University, he joined the
Commission of the European Communities in Brussels, Belgium, where he
worked as a project officer for the European Strategic Programme in
Information Technologies from 1985 to 1988.
In August 1988, he joined the faculty at UofSC in the Department of
Computer Science, where he primarily does research in Artificial
Intelligence. His first research result, known as “Valtorta’s theorem” and
obtained in 1980, was recently (2011) described as “seminal” and “an
important theoretical limit of usefulness” for heuristics computed by
search in an abstracted problem space. Most of his more recent research
has been in the area of uncertainty in artificial intelligence. His proof with
graduate student Vimin Huang of the completeness of Pearl’s do-calculus
of intervention in 2006 settled a 13-year old conjecture. His students have
been best paper award winners at the Conference on Uncertainty in
Artificial Intelligence (1993, 2006) and the International Conference on
Information Quality (2006). He was undergraduate director for the
Department of Computer Science from 1993 to 1999. He was awarded the
College of Science and Mathematics Outstanding Advisor Award in 1997.
In addition to his teaching and research activity, he has served in
numerous service capacities at the departmental (e.g., chair of the tenure
and promotion committee and of the colloquium committee), college (e.g
., College of Engineering and Computing scholarship committee), and
university level (e.g., faculty senator, committee on curricula and courses,
committee on instructional development, university committee on tenure
and promotion). In April 2016, Valtorta was elected chair of the university
faculty senate and became chair in August 2017 for a two-year term.