Raza Dawood serves as Rice University's Associate Vice President of Transformational Technology and Innovation. His role is to pilot the myriad ways that AI, machine learning and emerging technologies can help staff, faculty and students solve day-to-day problems on campus.

Prior to working at Rice, Raza was the Executive Director of Data Science at UBS, where he spearheaded machine learning and AI projects for marketing, wealth management and investment banking partners. His work there covered a wide variety of initiatives, from knowledge graphs, persona development, natural language and propensity models.

Before joining UBS, Raza worked at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was Director of Reporting and Analytics and led a team of data scientists, business analysts and engineers to the creation of the campus' data lake, a suite of custom business intelligence visualizations and machine learning.

Raza earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English Literature with a focus in Post-Colonialism from New York University, with secondary concentrations in studio and fine arts. He is an avid woodworker in his spare time.