Dr. Gregorio Toscano Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Research

My research focuses on evolutionary computation, multi-objective optimization, and machine learning. Recent work combines scalable optimization, artificial intelligence, and cloud systems for environmental, biomedical, quantum-computing, and autonomous-systems applications. I undertake these projects together with my students and collaborators.

Current Projects

I currently lead or co-lead four interdisciplinary seed projects at The Catholic University of America, totaling $178,000, in biomedical computing, quantum computing, and autonomous systems.

  1. 2025 – 2026

    Inverse Prediction of Viscoelastic Behavior of Engineered Tissues Using Deep Learning, Evolutionary Algorithms, and Atomic Force Microscopy

    Principal Investigator (Co-PIs: Christopher Raub and Santiago Solares)
    Sponsor: The Catholic University of America (Seed Fund) · $47,000

    Develops an end-to-end computational and experimental workflow integrating deep learning and evolutionary algorithms to extract bias-free viscoelastic spectra from AFM datasets within seconds.

  2. 2025 – 2026

    Development of Electronic Structure Calculation Methods Suitable for Quantum Computing

    Co-Principal Investigator (PI: Santiago Solares)
    Sponsor: The Catholic University of America (Seed Fund) · $47,000

    Develops quantum-computing-ready electronic structure algorithms using reduced Hamiltonian mappings, variational ansätze, and AI-enhanced quantum error correction.

  3. 2025 – 2026

    Predicting Antidepressant Toxicity in Gut Microbiota Using Deep and Reinforcement Learning

    Co-Principal Investigator (PI: John Choy)
    Sponsor: The Catholic University of America (Seed Fund) · $47,000

    Applies deep learning, reinforcement learning, and evolutionary multi-objective hyperparameter search to characterize and predict toxicity of antidepressants across bacterial species.

  4. 2025 – 2026

    Learning to Navigate

    Co-Principal Investigator (PI: Jeffrey W. Herrmann)
    Sponsor: The Catholic University of America (Seed Fund) · $37,000

    Investigates robust navigation for autonomous robots by developing and evaluating algorithm portfolios optimized for small, resource-limited platforms.

Past Projects

Before joining The Catholic University of America, I led four research projects funded by Mexican federal and state science agencies and two consulting projects with the local industry, and developed large-scale optimization tools for the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

  1. 2021 – 2024

    Large-Scale Multi-objective Optimization for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

    Research Associate
    Sponsor: Michigan State University / U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

    Scalable optimization and AI-assisted decision support for reducing pollutant loads in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

  2. 2019 – 2021

    Multi-objective Evolutionary Computing with an Automatic Decision-Making Approach

    Principal Investigator
    Sponsor: SEP-Cinvestav
    Project ID: 262

    Applied multi-objective evolutionary computing with automatic decision making to three practical problems.

  3. 2010 – 2013

    Use of Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithms for Dynamic and Many-objective Problems

    Principal Investigator
    Sponsor: CONACyT
    Project ID: 105060

  4. 2011

    Increment in Products and Domotics Services, and Improvement in the User Interface

    Project leader
    Company: Distribuidora Infovic S.A. de C.V.

    Improved the domotics user interface and service offerings.

  5. 2010

    Developing of a Circuitry-Specific Computer for Automatic Fingerprint Recognition

    Principal Investigator
    Sponsor: COTACyT Mixed Funds for Science and Technology
    Project ID: 107408

  6. 2010

    On the Developing of a Computational System for Domotics and Multimedia

    Project leader
    Company: Distribuidora Infovic S.A. de C.V.
    Project ID: INPYM-138326

  7. 2009 – 2010

    Use of Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithms for Multi-objective Optimization

    Principal Investigator
    Sponsor: CONACyT
    Project ID: 90548

Funding

My current projects are funded by the Seed Fund of The Catholic University of America.

Previously, my research was funded by Mexico's National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT), the Tamaulipas Council of Science and Technology (COTACyT), and SEP-Cinvestav, and my work on the Chesapeake Bay watershed was carried out at Michigan State University with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Selected Software Systems

  • A queued, cloud-native multi-objective optimization platform for the Chesapeake Bay watershed (AWS Fargate, Kubernetes, Docker, Django, RabbitMQ, Redis) supporting hundreds of users and problems with more than 3 million variables and 10,000 constraints.
  • A researcher-performance evaluation platform for Cinvestav-IPN with more than 600 users and integrations with Web of Science and Scopus.
  • A web simulation platform for metal-furnace manufacturing and high-temperature thermodynamic analysis for Nutec Bickley S.A. de C.V.
  • A Zoom-integrated conference-management platform for sessions and attendees.
  • The contest arena for Tamcoder and a membership-management system for the Mexican Academy of Computing.

Project Development

If you have an optimization, machine learning, or decision-support problem, contact me: we can help you solve it.

Contact me