Patrick Henry Winston (February 5, 1943 – July 19, 2019) was an American computer scientist and professor 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 the ...

. Winston was director of the

MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

from 1972 to 1997, succeeding

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, an ...

, who left to help found the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

. Winston was succeeded as director by

Rodney Brooks Rodney Allen Brooks (born 30 December 1954) is an Australian roboticist, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, author, and robotics entrepreneur, most known for popularizing the actionist approach to robotics. He was a Panasonic Profes ...

. Winston received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1965, where he was a member of

Phi Delta Theta Phi Delta Theta (), commonly known as Phi Delt, is an international secret and social fraternity founded at Miami University in 1848 and headquartered in Oxford, Ohio. Phi Delta Theta, along with Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Chi form the Miami Triad ...

fraternity, and went on to complete his Masters and PhD there as well, finalizing his PhD in 1970. His research interests included

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

and

human intelligence Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life. Through intelligence, humans ...

. Winston was known within the MIT community for his excellent teaching and strong commitment to supporting MIT undergraduate culture. At MIT, Winston taught 6.034: Artificial Intelligence and 6.803/6.833:

Human Intelligence Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life. Through intelligence, humans ...

Enterprise. Winston's ''How to Speak'' talk was an MIT tradition for over 40 years. "Offered every January, the talk is intended to improve your speaking ability in critical situations by teaching you a few heuristic rules." A book with his insights and teachings on

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

was published in 2020 by the MIT Press: "Make It Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform". Winston served as president of the

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...

from 1985–1987. Winston died in Boston on July 19, 2019.

Bibliography and publications

Winston authored a number of computer science and AI textbooks, including: * ''Artificial Intelligence'' * ''The Psychology of Computer Vision'' * ''Lisp'' (with Berthold K.P. Horn) * ''On to C'' * ''On to C++'' * ''On to Java'' (with Sundar Narasimhan) * ''On to Smalltalk''

References

External links

Personal homepage
* *
Oral History with Patrick H. Winston

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 1943 births 2019 deaths Scientists from Illinois Writers from Peoria, Illinois Artificial intelligence researchers American cognitive scientists Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty MIT School of Engineering alumni Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence History of artificial intelligence American computer scientists Lisp (programming language) people Presidents of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence {{compu-bio-stub