Patrick Henry Winston (February 5, 1943 – July 19, 2019) was an American computer scientist and professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. Winston was director of the

MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence L ...

from 1972 to 1997, succeeding

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive scientist, cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research in artificial intelligence (AI). He co-founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

, who left to help found the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

. Winston was succeeded as director by

Rodney Brooks Rodney Allen Brooks (born 30 December 1954) is an Australian robotics, roboticist, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, author, and robotics entrepreneur, most known for popularizing the behavior based robotics, actionist approach to ro ...

. After graduating from high school, Winston left East Peoria, a suburb of Peoria, IL, to come to MIT by train. He received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1965, where he was a member of

Phi Delta Theta Phi Delta Theta (), commonly known as Phi Delt, is an international secret and social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity founded in 1848, and currently headquartered, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Phi Delta Theta, alo ...

fraternity, and went on to complete his Masters and PhD there as well, finalizing his PhD in 1970. His research interests included

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 ( ...

and

human intelligence Human intelligence is the Intellect, intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex Cognition, cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. Using their intelligence, humans are able to learning, learn, Concept ...

. Winston was known within the MIT community for his excellent teaching and strong commitment to supporting MIT undergraduate culture. At MIT, Winston taught 6.034: Artificial Intelligence and 6.803/6.833:

Human Intelligence Human intelligence is the Intellect, intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex Cognition, cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. Using their intelligence, humans are able to learning, learn, Concept ...

Enterprise. Winston's ''How to Speak'' talk was an MIT tradition for over 40 years. "Offered every January, the talk is intended to improve your speaking ability in critical situations by teaching you a few heuristic rules." A book with his insights and teachings on

communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

was published in 2020 by the MIT Press: "Make It Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform". Winston served as president of the

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

from 1985 to 1987. Winston died in Boston on July 19, 2019.

Bibliography and publications

Winston authored a number of computer science and AI textbooks, including: * ''

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

'' * ''The Psychology of Computer Vision'' * ''

Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...

'' (with Berthold K.P. Horn) * ''On to C'' * ''On to C++'' * ''On to Java'' (with Sundar Narasimhan) * ''On to Smalltalk''

References

External links

Personal homepage
*
Oral History with Patrick H. Winston

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 1943 births 2019 deaths Scientists from Illinois Writers from Peoria, Illinois American artificial intelligence researchers American cognitive scientists Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty MIT School of Engineering alumni Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence American computer scientists Lisp (programming language) people Presidents of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence {{compu-bio-stub