Research Expertise and Interest

artificial intelligence, computational biology, algorithms, machine learning, real-time decision-making, probabilistic reasoning

Research Description

Stuart Russell is the Michael H. Smith and Lotfi A. Zadeh Chair in Engineering and a professor in the Division of Computer Science, EECS. His research covers a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence including machine learning, probabilistic reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, real-time decision making, multitarget tracking, computer vision, computational physiology, and philosophical foundations. He has also worked with the United Nations to create a new global seismic monitoring system for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. His current concerns include the threat of autonomous weapons and the long-term future of artificial intelligence and its relation to humanity. The latter topic is the subject of his new book, "Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control" (Viking/Penguin, 2019), which was excerpted in the New York Times and listed among Best Books of 2019 by the Guardian, Forbes, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times.

Stuart Russell received his B.A. with first-class honours in physics from Oxford University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1986. He then joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he is Professor (and formerly Chair) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, holder of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering, and Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI. He has served as an Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery at UC San Francisco and as Vice-Chair of the World Economic Forum's Council on AI and Robotics. He is a recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation, the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, the IJCAI Research Excellence Award, the World Technology Award (Policy category), the Mitchell Prize of the American Statistical Association, the Feigenbaum Prize of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and Outstanding Educator Awards from both ACM and AAAI. From 2012 to 2014 he held the Chaire Blaise Pascal in Paris, and from 2019 to 2021 he held the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. In 2021 he was appointed by Her Majesty The Queen as an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) and was selected as Reith Lecturer. He is an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford; Distinguished Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI; Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House); and Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His book "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" (with Peter Norvig) is the standard text in AI; it has been translated into 14 languages and is used in 1500 universities in 135 countries.