Aaron F Bobick is dean of the

McKelvey School of Engineering The James McKelvey School of Engineering is a part of Washington University in St. Louis. Founded in 1854, the engineering school is a research institution occupying seven buildings on Washington University's Danforth Campus. Research emphasis ...

at Washington University in St. Louis. Bobick’s research is in the field of

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 ...

and

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 human ...

. He has chaired and published papers in top-tier academic conferences in these areas. His research and expert opinions on technology have also been reported in major news sources.

Biography

Education

Bobick has received his undergraduate degrees in 1981 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 ...

and

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following this, Bobick received his Ph.D. (1987), in Cognitive Science, also from MIT.

Research career

Upon receiving his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bobick worked at 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 ...

as an assistant and associate professor until he left to accept a position as an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the College of Computing. After arriving at Georgia Tech, Bobick served as the director of the

GVU Center The GVU Center at Georgia Tech (formerly the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center) is an interdisciplinary research center located near Technology Square in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and affiliated with the Georgia Institute of Tech ...

, a center focussed initially on graphics, visualization and usability in computer science, and in 2007 became the first chair of the new School of Interactive Computing. Among Bobick’s accomplishments is KidsRoom, an immersive entertainment and learning environment that was a featured exhibit in the

Millennium Dome The Millennium Dome was the original name of the large dome-shaped building on the Greenwich Peninsula in South East London, England, which housed a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium. As of 2022, it is the ni ...

. His expertise in using computer vision techniques to recognize people has received international attention in the popular press, including the

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...

and

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...

Research interests

Bobick's research lies generally in the fields of

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 ...

(AI) and

. However, his research has also included research in the area of

ubiquitous computing Ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing can occur using ...

with a particular focus on smart home environments and living laboratories.

References

External links