This interview is with Rao Vemuri, Professor Emeritus of Applied Science. He held a joint appointment at Lawrence Livermore National Labs. He retired in 2010.
His research focus was on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with special focus on neural networks. He applied this technology to problems such as computer security, the discrimination of earthquakes from underground explosions, remediation of polluted groundwater aquifers, and on the reconstruction of Chromosome 19 in the Human Genome Project.
He was a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India and acted as a CTO of Smartifacts.com.
In his spare time Prof. Vemuri writes popular science and science fiction in his native language, Telugu – one of the regional languages of India. He published more than a dozen popular science books on topics of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology and compiled an English-Telugu and Telugu-English dictionary to facilitate science writing in Telugu.
He is interviewed by his friend and colleague, Yin Yeh, Professor Emeritus of Applied Science.