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Kumo (Nvidia) co-founder Hema Raghavan, a UMass Amherst computer science doctoral graduate, will deliver a lecture for the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences Dean’s Lecture Series at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 23, in Room E120 of the Computer Science Laboratories. 

Raghavan’s lecture, titled “Replacing XGBoost: Open Foundation Models for Structured Data, and What It Took to Build Them,” will discuss how open foundation models can improve predictive AI. She will also discuss her journey from the doctoral program in the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at UMass Amherst to roles at major tech companies, and on to co-founding Kumo with Jure Leskovec and Vanja Josifovski. 

In addition, she will share the story of building the company, including the decisions the founders got right, the ones they got wrong, and the lessons she would pass on to researchers and students who are considering making the leap from research to product. 

Raghavan previously worked at Yahoo!, IBM Research and LinkedIn, where she built large-scale machine learning systems. Kumo's work has been recognized with a place on the Forbes AI 50 list (2024), a Fast Company Next Big Things in Tech award (Foundational AI, 2025) and a place on Inc.'s 2025 Best in Business list (Best Startups). Raghavan was named to Inc.'s 2026 Female Founders 500. 

All Dean’s Lecture Series events are free and open to the public. A reception will begin at 2:30 p.m., immediately following the presentation. Those who wish to attend are requested to RSVP online or by emailing Ben Stickan at [email protected].