Ricardo Baeza-Yates, professor in the Department of Engineering at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), has been named winner of the 2025 Luiz André Barroso Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The ACM, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, announced the winner of the award on Wednesday 15 April in New York. With this distinction, it recognizes Baeza-Yates’s contributions to research on algorithms and information retrieval, as well as his leadership in fostering a transnational research community across Latin America. Baeza-Yates initially studied and began his research career in Chile, his country of origin.

The ACM Luiz André Barroso Award recognizes researchers from historically underrepresented communities who have made fundamental contributions to computer science. The award is named after Luiz André Barroso, a Brazilian computer engineer who pioneered the design of modern data centres. Barroso, who grew up in a diverse community, was a strong supporter of equal opportunities for everyone.

Baeza-Yates, recipient of this year’s award and native of Chile, is one of the world’s foremost researchers in information retrieval, particularly for having created innovative systems for structuring and processing data. Following the announcement of the award, the ceremony will take place on 13 June at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The award carries a cash prize of $40,000 plus an additional $10,000 cash contribution to an approved charity of the awardee’s choice. Financial support for the Luiz André Barroso Award is provided by Google.

Founder of the Social and Responsible Computing Research Group at UPF

At UPF, Baeza-Yates is a professor in the Department of Engineering, where he founded the current Social and Responsible Computing Research Group. Over the past decade, he has focused on responsible AI and is one of the leading authors of ACM's Principles for Responsible Algorithmic Systems, published in October 2022. This has prompted his appointment to several technology policy committees, including at ACM, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

He is currently the search chief scientist at You.com and holds teaching positions at both KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and the University of Chile, where he completed his engineering studies and a master’s degree in this field before earning his PhD from the University of Waterloo (Belgium). As a practitioner, Baeza-Yates has served as vice-president of Research for Yahoo Labs, secured 14 patents and co-founded several startups in Chile and Spain, the latest one Theodora AI, devoted to mitigating technological bias.

Research of international renown

His work has yielded a number of influential algorithms for string searching (algorithmic process for detecting patterns) and fuzzy matching (method used to prepare and analyse data). One of the best-known algorithms developed by the researcher is the Shift-Or algorithm.

His textbook, Modern Information Retrieval (co-authored with Berthier Ribeiro-Neto), remains the most widely used and authoritative reference in the discipline. He has also authored more than 500 leading academic articles.

Driving force behind the Latin American computing community

Over the course of his career, he has played a crucial role in strengthening the Latin American computing community. At the University of Chile, he was founding director of the Centre for Web Research, which became a hub for attracting top talent and supporting young researchers. The efforts of Baeza-Yates and other researchers led to a vibrant technology sector in Chile, today known as “Chilecon Valley”.

Later, as president of the Latin American Centre for Computer Studies (CLEI), he headed the association of computer science departments in Latin America. He also was one of the coordinators of the Ibero-American cooperation programme in science and technology for development (CYTED). In addition to this, he co-founded two of Latin America’s most influential research conferences in this field: the String Processing and Information Retrieval Symposium (SPIRE) and the Alberto Mendelzon Workshop (AMW), dedicated to databases and web research. He has also helped foster interest among young people in the field, as well as training and supervising numerous PhD students in this area.

A career deserving of multiple distinctions

Baeza-Yates had previously received several awards honouring his career. These include the CLEI Distinction for Contributions to Computing in Latin America (2009), the Spanish “Ángela Ruiz Robles” Award for Research Excellence and Entrepreneurship in Applied Computing (2018), the Chilean National Prize for Applied Sciences and Technology (2024) and the first Merit Award from the Chilean Computing Science Society (2025). He is a member of Academia Europaea, and a fellow of ACM and IEEE.