She is the head of Google’s research and development office in New York and leads the work of refining the search engine services.
The key word is machine learning, where systems improve themselves – something Corinna Cortes has worked on throughout her career.
It started in the research firm Bell Labs in New Jersey, where she was an intern while taking a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Rochester.
Before that, Corinna Cortes had studied physics and mathematics at the University of Copenhagen, where her American supervisor inspired her to pursue a research path in the USA.
She left in 1989 for a Fulbright scholarship, where it is actually intended that you should return to Denmark for at least two years after completing your PhD. That’s not how it went.
At Bell Labs, Corinna Cortes was part of a research team that made honorable advances in the development of codes that can be used to guide machine learning. It provided access to temporary extensions of the residence permit.
And in 2001, she helped find suspected terrorists from the 9/11 attacks through her expertise in handling large datasets. That work helped provide the ticket to permanent residency in the United States.
Two years later, Google called, setting up a New York office. Here, Corinna Cortes has since been involved in directing the research work in one of the world’s most influential companies.
Since the 1980s, she has only visited Denmark on short occasions – among other things in connection with her position as adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Copenhagen and the appointment as honorary alumnus at the same place.
Corinna Cortes has fallen in love with Manhattan, where she lives with her husband, who is a professor of mathematics and also works for Google. They have two children studying computer science at elite Berkeley and Cornell universities.
She is an avid runner who has participated in the city’s marathon a double-digit number of times, and in 2003 she became number four among the women at that distance in Copenhagen.
And she also maintains a Danish custom: She bikes to work every morning.