By Yolanda Gil
Joining the incoming PhD class at Carnegie Mellon in the late 1980s, I was lucky to have incredible opportunities for faculty advisors and mentors in AI. Jaime Carbonell was among the more junior faculty, continuing the research that he started in his PhD combining natural language, planning, and machine learning.
By Karen Myers
“Hello! This is Nils Nilsson calling!!” Or so the booming voice on the other end of the line claimed, as I skeptically held the phone in my hand on a Sunday afternoon mid-way through my final semester as an undergraduate in Toronto. I had been in my dorm room preparing for a mid-term in my Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course, in fact reading through the textbook which Nils himself had authored.
By Mark Finlayson, Florida International University
“What do you say?” Patrick’s enunciated greeting would ring out, ritual-like, as I presented myself at the threshold to 32-251. His blond hair poking up from behind his monitor, I could hear in his voice whether he wore his characteristic wry smile. My visits were unscheduled: I would come over from my neighboring office when I saw his light on and door open. I spoke with him almost every work day for nearly twelve years, in conversations long and short, mostly about research: science, engineering, academics, artificial intelligence, cognition, or the latest paper or proposal we were writing.
by Kenneth D. Forbus, Northwestern University
I first met Patrick when I started working at the MIT AI Lab in Fall of1973. I was a freshman, doing a project with David Marr that was a step on the path to the Primal Sketch. It was like a dream come true to work there. At the time, Patrick had just taken over as director, despite being an assistant professor. This was an unusual burden, but he handled it well, ensuring that it ran more smoothly while maintaining an exciting intellectual environment.