In the current age of big data, Prof. Gal’s research is focused on developing novel models and algorithms for data integration. He is an expert in information systems and data science, and more recently, in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Prof. Gal’s early career centered on various aspects of data semantics in cooperative information systems, including methods of integrating data that affect the way people seek information over the Internet. He also worked on schema matching—the task of providing communication between databases and connection to real-world concepts. Since 2001, envisioning the tidal wave of big data, he has turned toward investigating aspects of uncertainty in data integration and his research agenda became a key to data analysis in machine learning and AI.
Born in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Prof. Gal received his bachelor’s degree in computer science in 1990, and his doctorate in information systems engineering in 1995. Both of his degrees are from the Technion. During his doctoral studies, he received the Miriam and Aaron Gutwirth Scholarship for three consecutive years (1993–1995). Alongside his studies, he served in the Israeli Air Force reserves as an information systems consultant.
After a two-year stint as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto in the Department of Computer Science, Prof. Gal started his academic career as an assistant professor at Rutgers University. He joined the Technion in 2001 and has been active in numerous University activities, including having served as Vice Dean for Teaching from 2008 to 2011.
Prof. Gal has published more than 150 papers in leading professional journals and top conferences. Over the years, Avigdor won several best paper awards and in 2018 he won the test-of-time award at the DEBS (Distributed and Event Based Systems) conference, for the most influential research paper of DEBS’2008. He also authored the 2011 book Uncertain Schema Matching. He has won the IBM Faculty Award each year from 2002 to 2004 and the JPMorgan Faculty Award in 2019. He also won several Technion teaching awards, the Technion-Microsoft Electronic Commerce Research Award for four consecutive years, the 2012 Yanai Award for Excellence in Academic Education and others. Prof. Gal serves in various editorial capacities and helped organize professional workshops and conferences nearly every year since 1998.
