Cluj researcher Rada Mihalcea, professor at the University of Michigan and director of the institution's artificial intelligence laboratory, was officially admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Events dedicated to new members took place between October 9 and 11, with the main ceremony held at Sanders Theatre. Her name was included on the academy's official list in the computer science section.

Born in Cluj-Napoca and a graduate of the Technical University of the city, Rada Mihalcea holds the position of "Janice M. Jenkins" professor of computer science and engineering at Michigan and directs the Michigan Artificial Intelligence Lab. Her research focuses on natural language processing, multimodal information processing, and computational social sciences.

Throughout her career, she has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, awarded in 2009 by President Barack Obama, and was designated Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2019 and of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2021.

Honorary citizen of Cluj since 2014, Rada Mihalcea organizes together with Cluj-Napoca City Hall the annual "Rada Mihalcea Award for Young Researchers in Science and Engineering," which reached its 12th edition in 2026. The first prize of $3,000 went to Cristina Chircov from Politehnica București, and the second prize of $2,000 to Gheorghe-Adrian Martău from USAMV Cluj-Napoca.

For Cluj residents settled abroad, Rada Mihalcea's career shows how a career built away from the city can remain connected to the home community, through the prizes she funds for young researchers from Romania.