Raúl Rojas

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Raúl Rojas González (born 1955) is a Mexican emeritus professor of Computer Science and Mathematics at the Free University of Berlin. He is a specialist in artificial neural networks. He helped build the FU-Fighters, robot soccer players that were world champions in 2004 and 2005. He now leads an autonomous car project called Spirit of Berlin. He and his team won the Wolfgang von Kempelen Prize for work on Konrad Zuse and the history of computers. Most of his current work is in artificial intelligence and its applications, but he also has degrees in mathematics and economics.

In 2009, Mexico created the Raúl Rojas González Prize for scientific achievement by Mexican citizens; the first winner was Luis Rafael Herrera Estrella for plant biotechnology. Rojas ran for president at the Free University of Berlin in 2010. In 2015, he joined the University of Nevada, Reno, College of Science. He is also a senior professor at the German University of Digital Science.

Rojas was born on June 25, 1955, in Mexico City. His father was an engineer and his mother a teacher. He studied mathematics and physics at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. He moved to Germany in 1982 to pursue a PhD in economics under Elmar Altvater. His dissertation was published as Die Armut der Nationen – Handbuch zur Schuldenkrise von Argentinien bis Zaire (The Poverty of Nations – Handbook of the Debt Crisis from Argentina to Zaire). He became a full professor at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1994, and later moved to the Free University of Berlin’s Informatics department. His wife, Margarita Esponda Argüero, is a professor in the same department.