Dr Ruoyi Zhou

Dr Ruoyi Zhou is the Director of IBM Research – Ireland with the responsibilities to drive innovation and grow a world-class industrial research organization in AI, Internet of Things (IoT), high performance computing, mathematical modeling, quantum computing, and other cutting-edge sciences and technologies.

Prior to her current role, she served as the Director of IBM Accessibility Research where she oversaw development of advanced technology to enable accessibility for IBM products, solutions, and services; creation of AI-powered assistive technology for people with disabilities; and exploration of IoT-based AI solutions for Aging. She also served on the Industry Advisory Council at the Colorado University College of Engineering & Applied Science and on the Board of Advisors for G3ict. She initiated and launched the Accessibility track at the Grace Hopper Conference and served as a committee member. Additionally, Ruoyi was the Co-Director of AI for Healthy Living, a joint research center between IBM and the University of California, San Diego.

Previously, Ruoyi was the Director responsible for the partnership between IBM Research and IBM Global Business Services. In this role, she led a global team and grew services revenue by applying differentiating technologies to solve challenging business problems. During her tenure as a senior research manager, Ruoyi led a cross-disciplinary team in tackling one of the most difficult problems in IBM’s strategic outsourcing business: forecasting deal cost and pricing, using complex mathematical modeling and predictive analytics. Before stepping into research management, Ruoyi served as the Chief of Staff in the Lab Director’s office at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. Ruoyi spent the early part of her career in IBM’s Storage Systems Group as an engineer designing magnetic recording heads and developing thin-film disk technology. Prior to joining IBM, Ruoyi was a postdoctoral researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she studied and researched process and characterization of high-temperature superconductors.

Ruoyi holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Rutgers University. She has over 30 publications and is the recipient of several patents. She was a YWCA TWIN Award honoree, one of the most prestigious awards in the United States, recognizing successful women executives for their outstanding achievements.