Alan Mackworth is a Professor of Computer Science and Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

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Education

Alan Mackworth was educated at University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 (B.A.Sc.), Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 (A.M.) and University of Sussex

University of Sussex

The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....

 (D.Phil.).

Research

He works on constraint-based artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 with applications in vision, robotics

Robotics

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...

, situated agents, assistive technology

Assistive technology

Assistive technology or adaptive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them...

 and sustainability. He is known as a pioneer in the areas of constraint satisfaction

Constraint satisfaction

In artificial intelligence and operations research, constraint satisfaction is the process of finding a solution to a set of constraints that impose conditions that the variables must satisfy. A solution is therefore a vector of variables that satisfies all constraints.The techniques used in...

, robot soccer, hybrid systems and constraint-based agents. He has authored over 100 papers and co-authored two books: Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach (1998) and Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents (2010).

RoboCup

Alan Mackworth proposed and built the World’s First Soccer-Playing Robots, which led to the development of robot soccer as the premier global platform for multi-agent robotic research through the International RoboCup Foundation, where he has been honoured as “The Founding Father”. Robot soccer as a challenge problem has great scientific significance. It has now become a standard test environment for cross-testing research ideas: a forum for evolving theories of multi-agent systems. Through regular international RoboCup

RoboCup

RoboCup is an international robotics competition founded in 1997. The aim is to develop autonomous soccer robots with the intention of promoting research and education in the field of artificial intelligence...

 tournaments many research teams of students and professors compete and cooperate in the development, testing and evolution of new theories and new algorithms.

Career

He served as the founding Director of the UBC Laboratory for Computational Intelligence. He was President and Trustee of International Joint Conferences on AI (IJCAI) Inc.; he is on the IJCAI Executive Committee. He has served on many editorial boards and program committees. He was VP and President of the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence (CSCSI). He served as President of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence or AAAI is an international, nonprofit, scientific society devoted to advancing the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines...

 (AAAI).

Awards

Alan Mackworth has received the ITAC/NSERC Award for Academic Excellence, the Killam Research Prize, the CSCSI Distinguished Service Award, the AAAI Distinguished Service Award, the Association for Constraint Programming Award for Research Excellence and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Canadian AI Association (CAIAC). He is a Fellow of AAAI, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research enables Canadian researchers to work on international research teams that are custom built to transform their fields of study...

 and the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

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External links

• Alan Mackworth web page