Jump to content

Eric Grimson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 77.109.172.90 (talk) at 09:32, 11 September 2016 (Life and career: some words missing there). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

W. Eric L. Grimson
William Eric Leifur Grimson
Born1953 (age 70–71)
Alma materUniversity of Regina (B.S., 1975)
MIT (Ph.D., 1980)
SpouseEllen Hildreth
AwardsAAAI Fellow (2000)
IEEE Fellow (2004)
ACM Fellow (2014)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
Computer vision
InstitutionsMIT (Chancellor)
ThesisComputing shape using a theory of human stereo vision (1980)
Websitepeople.csail.mit.edu/welg/

William Eric Leifur Grimson (born 1953) is a Canadian-born computer scientist and former Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1] Prior to his appointment as Chancellor in March 2011, Grimson was head of the university's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Bernard Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering. He is a native of Estevan, Saskatchewan.

Life and career

Grimson was born in 1953 in Estevan, Saskatchewan where his father, William, was the principal of Estevan Collegiate Institute, the local high school, and his mother an eminent musician and teacher of piano performance and music theory. The family later moved to Regina where he attended Campbell Collegiate and the University of Regina, graduating in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and physics.[2][3] In 1980, he received his PhD in mathematics from MIT. His doctoral dissertation, Computing shape using a theory of human stereo vision, was on computer vision, a field which would become the focus of his research career. An expanded version of the dissertation was published by MIT Press in 1981 as From Images To Surfaces: A Computational Study of the Human Early Vision System, which was endorsed by Tomaso Poggio and Noam Chomsky.[4][5]

After completing his PhD, Grimson worked as a research scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and joined the university's faculty in 1984. He eventually rose to Bernard Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering and Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In February 2011, he was appointed Chancellor of MIT, succeeding Phillip Clay, and took up his post the following month.[6] He is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (2000), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (2004) and Association for Computing Machinery (2014).[7][8]

Awards

  • 2014. ACM Fellow.
For contributions to computer vision, and medical image computing. [9]
  • 2004. IEEE Fellow.
For contributions to surface reconstruction, object-recognition, image database indexing and medical applications.
  • 2000. AAAI Fellow.
For significant contributions to the theory and application of computer vision, ranging from algorithms for binocular stereo, surface interpolation and object recognition to deployed systems for computer-assisted surgery. [10]

Selected works

  • 2003. Object Recognition by Computer: The Role of Geometric Constraints. MIT press
  • 1989. AI in the 1980s and Beyond: An MIT Survey. (Ed. with Ramesh S. Patil) MIT press
  • 1981. From Images to Surfaces: A Computational Study of the Human Early Visual System. MIT press
Endorsed by Tomaso Poggio and Noam Chomsky;
Dedicated to David Marr.


Personal life

Grimson is married to Wellesley College professor, Ellen Hildreth. The couple have two sons[5]

References

  1. ^ http://libraries.mit.edu/mithistory/institute/offices/office-of-the-mit-chancellor/
  2. ^ Estevan Mercury (14 October 2011). "Q & A with MIT's chancellor".
  3. ^ University of Regina Alumni Association, Alumni Crowning Achievement Awards Dr. Eric Grimson, BSc'75 (High Honours)
  4. ^ IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (July 1984). "Editorial". Vol. PAMI 6, No. 4, p. 385. Retrieved 26 May 2013
  5. ^ a b MIT News Office (10 February 2011), Professor Eric Grimson named next chancellor: Current head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to succeed Phillip L. Clay, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  6. ^ MIT. W. Eric L. Grimson, Chancellor. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
  7. ^ Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (6 May 2011). "Member Recognitions: May 2011". Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  8. ^ Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Elected AAAI Fellows. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  9. ^ ACM Fellows 2014
  10. ^ AAAI FELLOWS