Stuart Alan Geman (born March 23, 1949) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, known for influential contributions to computer vision, statistics, probability theory,

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 the neurosciences. ikipediaList of important publications in computer science. He and his brother,

Donald Geman Donald Jay Geman (born September 20, 1943) is an American applied mathematician and a leading researcher in the field of machine learning and pattern recognition. He and his brother, Stuart Geman, are very well known for proposing the Gibbs sampl ...

, are well known for proposing the

Gibbs sampler In statistics, Gibbs sampling or a Gibbs sampler is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for obtaining a sequence of observations which are approximated from a specified multivariate probability distribution, when direct sampling is diffic ...

, and for the first proof of convergence of the simulated annealing algorithm.

Biography

Geman was born and raised in Chicago. He was educated at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

(B.S., Physics, 1971), Dartmouth Medical College (MS, Neurophysiology, 1973), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D, Applied Mathematics, 1977). Since 1977, he has been a member of the faculty at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, where he has worked in the Pattern Theory group, and is currently the James Manning Professor of Applied Mathematics. He has received many honors and awards, including selection as a Presidential Young Investigator and as an ISI Highly Cited researcher. He is an elected member of the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. It was founded in 1885, although there had been international statistical congresses since 1853. The institute has about 4,000 elected members from gov ...

, and a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and of the American Mathematical Society. He was elected to the US

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 ...

in 2011.

Work

Geman's scientific contributions span work in probabilistic and statistical approaches 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 re ...

Markov random fields In the domain of physics and probability, a Markov random field (MRF), Markov network or undirected graphical model is a set of random variables having a Markov property described by an undirected graph. In other words, a random field is said to ...

Markov chain Monte Carlo In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods comprise a class of algorithms for sampling from a probability distribution. By constructing a Markov chain that has the desired distribution as its equilibrium distribution, one can obtain ...

(MCMC) methods,

nonparametric inference Nonparametric statistics is the branch of statistics that is not based solely on parametrized families of probability distributions (common examples of parameters are the mean and variance). Nonparametric statistics is based on either being dist ...

, random matrices, random dynamical systems, neural networks, neurophysiology, financial markets, and natural image statistics. Particularly notable works include: the development of the

, proof of convergence of

simulated annealing Simulated annealing (SA) is a probabilistic technique for approximating the global optimum of a given function. Specifically, it is a metaheuristic to approximate global optimization in a large search space for an optimization problem. It ...

, foundational contributions to the

Markov random field In the domain of physics and probability, a Markov random field (MRF), Markov network or undirected graphical model is a set of random variables having a Markov property described by an undirected graph. In other words, a random field is said to b ...

("graphical model") approach to inference in vision and machine learning, and work on the compositional foundations of vision and cognition.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geman, Stuart Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1949 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Probability theorists American statisticians Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Brown University faculty Geisel School of Medicine alumni University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni