Lynne Edwards Parker is Associate Vice Chancellor and Director of the AI Tennessee Initiative at the University of Tennessee. Previously, she was Deputy United States Chief Technology Officer and Founding Director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office at the United States' White House

Office of Science and Technology Policy An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...

. She is an American

roboticist Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

specializing in multi-robot systems, swarm robotics, and distributed artificial intelligence.

Education and career

Parker is originally from Knoxville, Tennessee. Following her older sister into technology, she majored in computer science at

Tennessee Technological University Tennessee Technological University, commonly referred to as Tennessee Tech, is a public research university in Cookeville, Tennessee, United States. It was formerly known as Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, and before that as University of Dixie ...

, graduating in 1983. After a master's degree in computer science at the University of Tennessee in 1988, she completed her Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. Her dissertation, '' Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Cooperation'', was supervised by Rodney Brooks. She joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a robotics researcher while she was a master's student, taking a leave for her doctorate. She moved from ORNL to the University of Tennessee in 2002. She was interim dean of the Tickle College of Engineering, before taking a leave from the faculty to join the White House

in 2018. She was named founding director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office in 2021.

Recognition

Parker was named an IEEE Fellow in 2010, "for contributions to distributed and heterogeneous multi-robot systems". She was named a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2022, "for pioneering research in distributed robotics and exceptional leadership in AI policy". She is also a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. In 2014, Tennessee Tech gave her their Computer Scientist of Distinction Award. In 2023, Computing Research Association awarded her the Distinguished Service Award for her unparalleled impact on the computing research community.

References

External links

*
Robotics History: Narratives and Networks Oral Histories: Lynne Parker
IEEE Robotics & Automation Society {{DEFAULTSORT:Parker, Lynne Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists American women computer scientists Tennessee Technological University alumni University of Tennessee alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Oak Ridge National Laboratory people University of Tennessee faculty Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science