Pattie maes biography

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This virtual meeting gives you the opportunity to ask key questions about advancing your career in academia to Professor Pattie Maes from MIT. This meeting is specifically for Early Career Researchers.

In this informal meeting Pattie will give a short presentation with tips on advancing your career in academia and then answer your questions.

As this meeting is only 30 minutes long we ask that you pre-submit questions when registering.

Biography

Pattie Maes is a professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences and until recently served as academic head. She runs the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces research group, which aims to radically reinvent the human-machine experience. Coming from a background in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction, she is particularly interested in the topic of cognitive enhancement, or how immersive and wearable systems can actively assist people with memory, attention, learning, decision making, communication, and wellbeing.

Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She has received several awards: Fast Company named her one of 50 most influential designers (2011); Newsweek picked her as one of the “100 Americans to watch for” in the year 2000; TIME Digital selected her as a member of the “Cyber Elite,” the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title “Global Leader for Tomorrow”; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the “Lifetime Achievement Award” by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. She has also received an honorary doctorate from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, and her 2009 TED talk on “the 6th sense device” is among the most-watched TE

Introduction by
John Brockman

Pattie Maes came to the United States nine years ago to work with Marvin Minsky and Rodney Brooks at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. She had received her Ph.D. in AI at the University of Brussels, and was attracted by Marvin and Rod's more alternative view on artificial intelligence, and artificial life. After working for the AI lab for two years she moved to MIT's Media Lab, which is more interdisciplinary than the AI lab, something that attracted her given that she has varied interests. She used to be happy just doing research, but given that her research is finally applied anyway, she realized that she would only be happy if her work made it into the real world, and so that's one of the reasons that she started Firefly, a start-up which sells software that allows Web sites to personalize the interactions that they have with the visitors of their Web sites. An example is Barnes and Noble, a Firefly customer.

Barnes and Noble uses the tools to recognize individual people so that they can provide personalized service to those people. Maes points out that it used to be the case that many years ago you would go to the corner bookstore and the owner there would know you, would know what you have bought before, they would know about your interests and they could give you personalized service and say, "Hey, did you know there was a new book by Isabelle Allende?" They know you have an interest in certain types of writers. She believes that Web sites will have to provide that same kind of very personalized high quality service on the Web, because this will be one of the ways in which they can distinguish themselves.

"If Barnes and Noble on the Web knows me," she says, "knows what I'm interested in, can help me find the stuff that I'm interested in, can tell me hey, you've bought the other Isabelle Allende books, did you know that she has a new book out, or did you know that there's another author very similar to Marqu

Belgian computer scientist

Pattie Maes (born 1961) is a Belgian scientist. She is a professor in MIT's program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directed the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. She served for several years as both the head and associate head of the Media Lab's academic program. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. She holds bachelor's and PhD degrees in computer science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.

Maes' areas of expertise are human–computer interaction, intelligent interfaces and ubiquitous computing. Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences.

She has received several awards: Newsweek magazine named her one of the "100 people for the new century";TIME Digital selected her as a member of the Cyber-Elite (the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world); the World Economic Forum honored her with the title Global Leader for Tomorrow; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. In 1997, Maes was listed in People Magazine's annual 50 Most Beautiful People feature.

Maes is married to computer graphics researcher Karl Sims.

Books

• Designing Autonomous Agents: Theory and Practice from Biology to Engineering and Back. MIT Press, 1991, ISBN 0-262-63135-0
• Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, Rodney Brooks & Pattie Maes, MIT Press, 1994, ISBN 0-262-52190-3

References

PATTIE MAES is the Alexander W. Dreyfoos (1954) Professor in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences and associate head of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directs the Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces research group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.

She holds bachelor's and PhD degrees in computer science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Her areas of expertise are human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence.

Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She has received several awards: FastCompany named her one of 50 most influential designers (2011). Newsweek magazine named her one of the "100 Americans to watch for" in the year 2000; TIME Digital selected her as a member of the Cyber-Elite, the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title "Global Leader for Tomorrow"; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. She also received an honorary doctorate from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Her 2009 TED talk is among the most watched TED talks ever.

In addition to her academic endeavors, Maes has been active as an entrepreneur as cofounder of several venture-backed companies including Firefly Networks (sold to Microsoft) and Open Ratings (sold to Dun & Bradstreet). She remains an advisor and investor to several MIT spinoffs.