Ruzena Bajcsy (born 1933 in

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

, now Slovakia) is an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and

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 (al ...

who specializes in

robotics 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 ...

. She is professor of

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and computer science 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 u ...

, where she is also director emerita of

CITRIS The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS) is a research institute operated by the University of California to facilitate the real-world application of technological research. App ...

(the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society). She was previously professor and chair of computer science and engineering at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where she was the founding director of the University of Pennsylvania's General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception (GRASP) Laboratory, and a member of the Neurosciences Institute in the School of Medicine. She has also been head of the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

's Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, with authority over a $500 million budget. She supervised at least 26 doctoral students who received the Ph.D. at Pennsylvania.Mathematics Genealogy Project
She was elected a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2005. She is the mother of computer-science professor Klara Nahrstedt.

Early life

Bajcsy was born in 1933 in

, now Slovakia to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family. Although her family was initially spared from Nazi

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

s due to her father's work as a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

, most of her adult relatives were killed by the Nazis in late 1944. Bajcsy and her sister, the only survivors in the immediate family, were supported as war orphans by the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

; Bajcsy was later raised in orphanages and in foster care. A strong student in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, she has said that she chose instead to study

as a university student because the career prospects for mathematics students at the time led to teaching, which in Communist Eastern Europe required a commitment to Marxist-Leninist ideology that she was unwilling to provide.

Education

She obtained Master's and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Slovak Technical University in 1957 and 1967, and an additional Ph.D. in computer science in 1972 from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Her thesis was "Computer Identification of Textured Visual Scenes", and her advisor was John McCarthy. In 2001, she received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

. From 2003 to 2005, she was a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee. The November 2002 issue of ''

Discover Discover may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album * ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine Businesses and brands * DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation'' * Di ...

'' named her to its list of the 50 most important women in science. In 2012, she received honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.

Writings

She has written over 225 articles in journals and conference proceedings, 25 book chapters, and 66 technical reports and has been on many editorial boards.

Current research

Her current research centers on

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 re ...

;

biosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

s and

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...

;

control Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controllin ...

intelligent systems is a Japanese video game developer best known for developing games with Nintendo and the ''Fire Emblem'', ''Paper Mario (series), Paper Mario'', ''WarioWare'', and ''Wars (series), Wars'' video game series. Originally, the company was headqua ...

, and

;

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...

and human-computer interaction,

computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...

; and

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

Memberships

Bajcsy is a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

and the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Institute of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, E ...

as well as a Fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM), the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, the

American Association for 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 ...

, and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

Awards

Bajcsy received the

(ACM)/Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Allen Newell Award in 2001, the

ACM Distinguished Service Award The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

in 2003, and the Computing Research Association Distinguished Service Award in 2003. Bajcsy's most current research has helped her gain recognition from

The Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memoria ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. Ruzena Bajcsy received the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science for her innovations in robotics and computer vision, specifically the development of improved robotic perception and the creation of better methods to analyze medical images. Additionally, she was the winner of the 2009 ABIE Award for Technical Leadership from the

Anita Borg Institute AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institute' ...

. Bajcsy has been named by the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Board of Directors the recipient of the 2013

IEEE Robotics and Automation Award The IEEE Robotics and Automation Award is a Technical Field Award of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) that was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 2002. This award is presented for contributions in the fi ...

for her contributions in the field of robotics and automation with the following citation: "For contributions to computer vision, the active perception paradigm, and medical robotics". Bajcsy is featured in the Notable Women in Computing cards.

References

External links

Ruzena Bajcsy homepage
EECS, UC Berkeley

, Visiting Committee for Advanced Technology,

NIST The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

, USA {{DEFAULTSORT:Bajcsy, Ruzena 1933 births Living people Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States Stanford University School of Engineering alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty Slovak women computer scientists American electrical engineers Artificial intelligence researchers American roboticists Women roboticists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American women computer scientists Women systems scientists UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava alumni 21st-century American women scientists 20th-century American women scientists Scientists from Bratislava American computer scientists Slovak computer scientists 21st-century American scientists 20th-century American scientists American women academics Members of the American Philosophical Society Members of the National Academy of Medicine