Dr Emir Muñoz is a Senior Manager, Machine Learning at Genesys as well as a graduate of University of Galway. Dr Muñoz worked with the University’s Data Science Institute (DSI), previously the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI). This experience provided a stepping stone into the world of industry engagement, leading to a permanent position with Genesys, a global cloud leader in AI-Powered Experience Orchestration. Read below to learn about Dr Muñoz’s journey from Santiago, Chile to Galway, Ireland, and how University of Galway paved a path toward success.
Emir Muñoz (EM): I was born in Santiago, Chile. In 2012, I was presented with an opportunity to have an international experience as part of an exchange programme between Latin American and European universities. University of Galway was on the list of possible places to visit, and I had read a couple of papers by Professor Paul Buitelaar about Natural Language Processing. This familiarity led to University of Galway becoming my first choice. More specifically, I elected to join the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), now transformed into the Data Science Institute (DSI), to work with Dr Aidan Hogan, who later happened to follow an academic career in Chile and is now an Associate Professor, and Dr Alessandra Mileo, who is currently Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Dublin City University, particularly in the areas of Linked Data and Machine Learning.
The DERI team was substantial, with people of more than 50 nationalities. It was truly a great thing to be a part of. I enjoyed my experience to the extent that my three-month internship evolved into living on the west coast of Ireland for more than 12 years and counting. At the start of it all, I wasn’t very familiar with Ireland, let alone Galway, but upon my arrival, I felt welcome, felt at home. Very quickly, I understood why Galway has a tendency to draw people in, and why those same people seldom leave after spending time among its charming streets and friendly populace.
EM: During high school, I was interested in the subjects of Chemistry and Biology, and I wanted to study Biochemistry at university. Destiny had something else prepared for me, and I ended up studying Informatics Engineering. I’ve always been a problem solver, and the market for computer skills – 20 years ago at this stage – was growing, so I took the challenge. I was the first in my family to enter university, so it wasn’t always easy. All the adversities, opportunities, and people who helped me along the way prepared me for where I am today. Some of the best advice I’ve received is to never assume negative outcomes beforehand, even if goals seem unreachable.
When DERI joined the INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics, I got the opportunity to join an industry–academia collaboration, and I ended up being hired by Fujitsu Ireland – a branch of the Japanese company – to pursue my PhD at University of Galway. The team of professionals I worked with was amazing, and it was genuinely fun to work with them. During that time, I focused on applying Machine Learning to Semantic Web and Healthcare use cases. I ended up specialising in Knowledge Graph Mining, which became the topic of my thesis. Knowledge graphs are a graph representation of knowledge, where entities such as people, locations, and things are represented with nodes and relations are connections between those nodes, e.g., “Galway, city_of, Ireland” represents the fact that Galway is a city in Ireland.
Curiosity has always been a driver for me, and with the team’s support, I published my first patent. It’s one of more than ten submissions to date, and it ultimately proved the benefits of an industry–academia collaboration. When teams have the right mindset, innovation comes naturally.
EM: Fast forward to 2018, and I was fortunate to join Genesys, which was entering the Irish market after acquiring the Altocloud startup – which was based in Galway – to build its Artificial Intelligence group. I was recruited by Dr Maciej Dabrowski, who was part of Altocloud (and also an ex-DERI-an), while he was building a Data Science team. Up to that point, I was unfamiliar with Genesys, and I was soon amazed to discover its global presence and market leadership. Nowadays, Genesys is a recognised name in Galway, and in fact all of Ireland, for its innovation and contributions to the AI and Tech community. Even with rapid growth, Genesys has created a welcoming, inclusive, and productive work environment for onsite and remote employees, bringing the culture of a small team to a big organisation.
At Genesys, I manage a team of Machine Learning professionals, and together we have been working on traditional Machine Learning and, more recently, with Large Language Models (LLM) to understand their capabilities to provide deliverables such as Virtual Agents and Agent Copilots, to improve customers’ and agents’ experience in contact centres. Working with the latest technology has been inspiring, and we are already shipping products infused with Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI).
EM: In my role as Senior Manager, Machine Learning, I directly apply research and engineering skills acquired during my MSc and PhD to build innovative AI systems responsibly. Genesys also actively collaborates with researchers in DSI at the University, investigating responsible AI and LLM use cases for low-resource languages. In this way, there is a healthy spirit of development shared between the University and Genesys, and this offers a great opportunity for industry–academia innovation.
As a hiring manager, I always look for curious applicants willing to build end-to-end AI applications: from collecting and understanding data to building Machine Learning models and understanding the business impact of solutions. If a person in this space displays those traits, it’s a good sign that they’re in the right place.
Profiles
Dr Emir Muñoz works in the Conversational AI group at Genesys Cloud, Ireland. In his role as Senior Manager for Machine Learning, he leverages his industry and academic experience to lead R+D+I projects, focusing on features that leverage artificial intelligence and Machine Learning solutions for contact centre optimisation and customer experience. He holds a BEng, MSc, and PhD. Dr Muñoz also has active participation in Portershed and ITAG activities, such as the ITAG AI forum.
