Bertram Raphael (born 1936) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...

known for his contributions to

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

Early life and education

Raphael was born in 1936 in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He received his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to si ...

in physics from the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

in 1957, and an MS degree in Applied Math from Brown University in 1959. He was a student of

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

and received his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in mathematics in 1964.

Career

Raphael started at

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...

in 1964 as a consultant. After completing his Ph.D. at MIT, he was at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

for an academic year, and subsequently joined SRI full-time in April 1965. He was a long-time member of SRI's

Artificial Intelligence Center The Artificial Intelligence Center is a laboratory in the Information and Computing Sciences Division of SRI International. It was founded in 1966 by Charles Rosen and studies artificial intelligence. One of their early projects was Shakey the Robo ...

, and was its director from 1970 to 1973. While at SRI, he helped invent the A* search algorithm and develop

Shakey the robot Shakey the Robot was the first general-purpose mobile robot able to reason about its own actions. While other robots would have to be instructed on each individual step of completing a larger task, Shakey could analyze commands and break them dow ...

, which was one of the first projects sponsored by

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the A ...

; Raphael directed work on Shakey from 1970 to 1971. He also co-founded the Journal of Artificial Intelligence. In 1976 he sold the NLS technology developed by the

Augmentation Research Center SRI International's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing. The main product to co ...

(ARC), led by

Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularl ...

, to Tymshare. From 1980 to 1990 Raphael worked as a research manager at Hewlett Packard. From 1990 to 1997 he helped his wife, Anne, operate Compass Point Travel Inc., a business that she had founded in 1980 in Mountain View, California. He was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Vienna during 1973 and 1974.

Selected publications

;Books *''The Thinking Computer: Mind Inside Matter'' (W.H. Freeman & Company, 1976) ;Dissertation *SIR (Semantic Information Retrieval program) on the logical representation of knowledge for question-answering systems (MIT, 1964)ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AITR-220.pdf

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raphael, Bertram Artificial intelligence researchers Living people Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni 1936 births SRI International people

Early life and education

Career

Selected publications

See also

References