Gerardo Beni (born Florence, Italy 21 February 1946) is a
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...
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 ...
at
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban dist ...
who, with Jing Wang, is known as the originator of the term ''
swarm intelligence
Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, ...
'' in the
context
Context may refer to:
* Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary
Computing
* Context (computing), the virtual environment required to s ...
of
cellular robotics and the concept of ''
electrowetting'', with
Susan Hackwood Susan Hackwood is the executive director of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST). She is a professor and researcher of electrical engineering credited for inventing the concept of electrowetting with Gerardo Beni in 1981.
Hack ...
. He also devised, with Xuan-Li Xie, the Xie–Beni index for measuring the validity of
fuzzy clustering
Fuzzy clustering (also referred to as soft clustering or soft ''k''-means) is a form of clustering in which each data point can belong to more than one cluster.
Clustering or cluster analysis involves assigning data points to clusters such that i ...
.
He is the author of "From Swarm Intelligence to Swarm Robotics" in the book ''Swarm Robotics''
[, DOI 10.1007/b105069]
Springer
Beni is married to Susan Hackwood. They have two children.
Education
In 1970 Beni was
admitted to the
Laurea
In Italy, the ''laurea'' is the main post-secondary academic degree. The name originally referred literally to the laurel wreath, since ancient times a sign of honor and now worn by Italian students right after their official graduation ceremony ...
in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
at the
University of Florence
The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled.
History
The first universi ...
,
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
.
In 1974, he received his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
in
theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
.
Academic career
Beni has
research
Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...
interest
In finance and economics, interest is payment from a borrower or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distin ...
s in swarm intelligence,
3D animation
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
, and
financial engineering.
[Gerardo Beni](_blank)
/ref>
Before moving to UC Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. Th ...
, he worked at UC Santa Barbara and AT&T Bell Laboratories
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
.Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
. In 1999, he became a Fellow of the AAAS.
Patents
Beni has been issued, either alone or in conjunction with other inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
s, several patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
s from the USPTO
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...
:[Patent Database Search Results: IN/Gerardo AND IN/Beni in US Patent Collection](_blank)
/ref>
while at UC Santa Barbara.
* [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Gerardo.INNM.&s2=Beni.INNM.&OS=IN/Gerardo+AND+IN/Beni&RS=IN/Gerardo+AND+IN/Ben Object analysis of multi-valued images] while at UCSB, together with J Wang.
References
External links
Beni's homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beni, Gerardo
1946 births
Living people
University of California, Riverside faculty
University of Florence alumni
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
University of California, Santa Barbara faculty
Fellows of the American Physical Society