Rodney A. Brooks is currently (2004) director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science. He is Chief Technical Officer and sits on the Board of iRobot Corp[1].

Career summary, research

• Degree in pure mathematics from Flinders University of South Australia
• Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University (1981)
• Research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT
• Faculty position at Stanford
• Joined the faculty of MIT (1984)

Current research:

• engineering intelligent robots to operate in unstructured environments
• understanding human intelligence through building humanoid robots

Publications

Recent books and papers:

• Cambrian Intelligence (MIT Press, 1999)
• The Relationship Between Matter and Life (in Nature 409, pp. 409-411; 2001)
• Flesh and Machines (Pantheon, 2002)

Other publications include papers and books in:

• model-based computer vision
• path planning
• uncertainty analysis
• robot assembly
• active vision
• autonomous robots
• micro-robots
• micro-actuators
• planetary exploration
• representation
• artificial life
• humanoid robots
• compiler design

Dr Brooks was also co-founding editor of the International Journal of Computer Vision and is on the editorial boards of various journals including:

• Adaptive Behavior
• Artificial Life
• Applied Artificial Intelligence
• Autonomous Robots
• New Generation Computing

Memberships, lectureships, prizes, etc

Memberships include:

• Founding Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Prizes include:

• Computers and Thought Award at the 1991 IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence)

Lectureships include:

• Cray lecturer at the University of Minnesota
• Mellon lecturer at Dartmouth College
• Hyland lecturer at Hughes
• Forsythe lecturer at Stanford University

Film appearances include:

• Being himself in the Errol Morris movie Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (named after one of his scientific papers)

External links

• Home page