2022 Outstanding Recent Alumni Award
While Siddha Ganju’s career is just beginning, her impact has already been extraordinary.
Since completing her master’s degree in computational data science and analytics at Carnegie Mellon University, she has made significant contributions to her field of artificial intelligence research with a specialization in the data-intensive computing task of interpreting visual data. This has included publishing “Practical Deep Learning for Cloud, Mobile and Edge,” an examination of real-world AI and computer vision projects. The book was translated into five languages less than a year after publication and inspired a team of students to build, qualify and compete as Team USA at Roborace, the autonomous car racing championship. Although her work at DeepVision as a data scientist working on object recognition algorithms has certainly been important, it was her volunteer work at the time that further stands out.
Siddha was tapped to join NASA’s Frontier Development Lab, an AI accelerator, to mentor deep-learning researchers, work on deep-learning tools and help develop an automated meteor detection pipeline for the NASA Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) project. Her work ultimately led to the discovery of multiple meteor showers and the first instrumental evidence of the Grigg-Mellish comet. Due to her impact, she was inducted as the youngest AI steering committee member of the NASA Frontier Development Lab at age 23.
Currently, Siddha leads teams at the computer systems design service company Nvidia that develop neural networks to create safer autonomous vehicles and enable life sciences companies to condense workflows from a week to a day, resulting in quicker breakthroughs for life-saving medical research. Siddha was honored by Forbes magazine with a 30 under 30 listing in 2019 for her work with artificial intelligence development and autonomous vehicle systems.
Siddha advocates for diversity and inclusion in technology, particularly supporting women in technology. She participates in the Women@SCS mentoring program, which partners current students with Carnegie Mellon alumnae working in similar fields to help navigate career challenges. She cofounded the citizen science SpaceML program and regularly mentors school students to nurture the next generation of interdisciplinary technologists from all backgrounds.