Michael Lederman Littman (born August 30, 1966) is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, researcher, educator, and author. His research interests focus on

reinforcement learning Reinforcement learning (RL) is an interdisciplinary area of machine learning and optimal control concerned with how an intelligent agent should take actions in a dynamic environment in order to maximize a reward signal. Reinforcement learnin ...

. He is currently a University Professor of Computer Science at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

, where he has taught since 2012.

Career

Before graduate school, Littman worked with Thomas Landauer at

Bellcore iconectiv supplies communications providers with network planning and management services. The company’s cloud-based information as a service network and operations management and numbering solutions span trusted communications, digital identi ...

and was granted a patent for one of the earliest systems for cross-language information retrieval. Littman received his Ph.D. in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from

in 1996. From 1996 to 1999, he was a professor at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. During his time at Duke, he worked on an automated crossword solver PROVERB, which won an Outstanding Paper Award in 1999 from

AAAI The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...

and competed in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. From 2000 to 2002, he worked at

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

. From 2002 to 2012, he was a professor at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

; he chaired the department from 2009-12. In Summer 2012 he returned to

as a full professor. He has also taught at

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

, where he was listed as an adjunct professor. Littman is currently on rotation from Brown University as a Division Director at the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Research

Littman's research interests are varied but have focused mostly on

and related fields, particularly, in

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

more generally,

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed ...

computer networking A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

partially observable Markov decision process A partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) is a generalization of a Markov decision process (MDP). A POMDP models an agent decision process in which it is assumed that the system dynamics are determined by an MDP, but the agent cannot ...

solving, computer solving of analogy problems and other areas. He is also interested in computing education more broadly and has authored a book on programming for everyone.

Awards

* Elected as an

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

in 2018 for "contributions to the design and analysis of sequential decision-making algorithms in artificial intelligence". * Winner of th
IFAAMAS Influential Paper Award
(2014) * * Winner of the AAAI “Shakey” Award fo
Overfitting: Machine Learning Music Video
(2014) * * Elected as a

AAAI Fellow Fellowship of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (abbreviated as AAAI Fellow or FAAAI) is an award granted to individuals that the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), judged to have made ...

in 2010 for "significant contributions to the fields of reinforcement learning, decision making under uncertainty, and statistical language applications". * * Winner of the AAAI �
Shakey
�� Award for Short Video fo
Aibo Ingenuity
(2007) * * Winner of th
Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching
at Rutgers (2011) * * Winner of th
Robert B. Cox Award
at Duke (1999) * * Winner of th
AAAI Outstanding Paper Award
(1999)

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

*
Michael Littman's Homepage

YouTube page

Music Videos

Press references

Smart Home Programming: If-Then Statements Make A Comeback
Science 2.0

New York Times
Many Scientists Dismiss the Fear of Robots
Fortune
Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of MIME Email Attachments
NJ Tech Weekly
Humans Beat Poker Bot… Barely
- NBC News

* ttp://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/going-cruciverbalistic Going Cruciverbalistic American Scientist

Udacity Courses

Intro to Algorithms

Machine Learning

Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making
{{DEFAULTSORT:Littman, Michael L. Living people American computer scientists Machine learning researchers Brown University alumni Duke University faculty Rutgers University faculty Brown University faculty 1966 births Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 2018 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Yale University alumni