[agents] Victor Lesser wins the 2009 IJCAI Award for Research Excellence

[Ana L. C. Bazzan]

good new for our community !!!




IJCAI-09 Awards

The IJCAI-09 Award for Research Excellence and the Computers and  
Thought Award are awarded by the IJCAI Board of Trustees, upon  
recommendation by the IJCAI-09 Awards Selection Committee, which  
consists this year of :
Jaime Carbonell, Carnegie Mellon University (USA)
Anthony G. Cohn, University of Leeds (Chair)
Tom Dietterich, Oregon State University (USA)
Malik Ghallab, INRIA-CNRS (France) , and
Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento (Italy).

The IJCAI Awards Selection Committee receives advice from members of  
the IJCAI-09 Awards Review Committee, who comment on the accuracy of  
the nomination material and provide additional information about the  
nominees. The IJCAI-09 Awards Review Committee is the union of the  
former Trustees of IJCAI, the IJCAI-09 Advisory Committee, the Program  
Chairs of the last three IJCAI conferences, and the past recipients of  
the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence and the IJCAI Distinguished  
Service Award, with nominees excluded.


IJCAI-09 Award for Research Excellence

The Research Excellence award is given to a scientist who has carried  
out a program of research of consistently high quality yielding  
several substantial results.  Past recipients of this honor are the  
most illustrious group of scientists from the field of Artificial  
Intelligence;
They are: John McCarthy (1985), Allen Newell (1989), Marvin Minsky  
(1991), Raymond Reiter (1993), Herbert Simon (1995), Aravind Joshi  
(1997), Judea Pearl (1999), Donald Michie (2001), Nils Nilsson (2003),  
Geoffrey E. Hinton (2005), and Alan Bundy (2007).
The winner of the 2009 Award for Research Excellence is Victor Lesser,  
Professor of Computer Science, in the University of Massachusetts  
Amherst. Professor Lesser is recognized for his seminal work on the  
foundations of blackboard control architectures and multi-agent  
systems and his foundational role in the formation of the multi-agent  
systems community.
IJCAI-09 Computers and Thought Award

The Computers and Thought Award is presented at IJCAI conferences to  
outstanding young scientists in artificial intelligence.  The award  
was established with royalties received from the book, Computers and  
Thought, edited by Edward Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman; it is  
currently supported by income from IJCAI funds.  Past recipients of  
this honor have been: Terry Winograd (1971), Patrick Winston (1973),  
Chuck Rieger (1975), Douglas Lenat (1977), David Marr (1979), Gerald  
Sussman (1981), Tom Mitchell (1983), Hector Levesque (1985), Johan de  
Kleer (1987), Henry Kautz (1989), Rodney Brooks (1991), Martha Pollack  
(1991), Hiroaki Kitano (1993), Sarit Kraus (1995), Stuart Russell  
(1995), Leslie Kaelbling (1997), Nicholas Jennings (1999), Daphne  
Koller (2001), Tuomas Sandholm (2003), and Peter Stone (2007).
There are two winners of the 2009 IJCAI Computers and Thought Award:  
Carlos Guestrin, Assistant Professor in the Machine Learning  
Department and the Computer Science Department of Carnegie Mellon  
University, and Andrew Ng, Assistant Professor in the Computer Science  
Department of Stanford University. Professor Guestrin is recognized  
for significant contributions to machine learning, probabilistic  
reasoning, and intelligent distributed sensor networks. Professor Ng  
is recognized for fundamental contributions to the application of  
machine learning to robot perception and control, for leadership in  
constructing robots that perform unscripted tasks in real  
environments, and for major contributions to machine learning.
Donald E. Walker Distinguished Service Award

The IJCAI Distinguished Service Award was established in 1979 by the  
IJCAI Trustees to honor senior scientists in AI for contributions and  
service to the field during their careers. Previous recipients have  
been: Bernard Meltzer (1979), Arthur Samuel (1983), Donald Walker  
(1989), Woodrow Bledsoe (1991), Daniel G. Bobrow (1993), Wolfgang  
Bibel (1999), Barbara Grosz (2001), Alan Bundy (2003), Raj Reddy  
(2005), and Ronald J.Brachman (2007).

At IJCAI-09, the Donald E. Walker Distinguished Service Award will be  
given to Luigia Carlucci Aiello, Professor at the Dipartimento di  
Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Roma ``La Sapienza'.  
Professor Aiello is recognized for her substantial contributions and  
extensive service to the field of Artificial Intelligence throughout  
her career.


-- 
Ana Lucia C. Bazzan, PhD
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul  -  Instituto de Informatica
Av. Bento Goncalves 9500, bloco IV -  Caixa Postal 15064
91501-970 Porto Alegre RS - Brasil
Voice +55 51 3308 6823  -  Fax +55 51 3308 7308
bazzan at inf.ufrgs.br     -  www.inf.ufrgs.br/~bazzan


The reasonable man adapts
himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends
on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists