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Allen Newell
Helping create early artificial-intelligence programs and models of human problem-solving.
Logic Theorist · General Problem Solver
- Born
- 19 March 1927
- Birthplace
- San Francisco, United States
- Died
- 19 July 1992
More people
Allen Newell
Allen Newell was an American computer scientist and cognitive researcher. With Herbert Simon and collaborators, he explored how symbolic processes could model reasoning.
Early life
Physics education
Graduated from Stanford in 1949 before studying mathematics at Princeton.
Research interests
Turned from pure mathematics towards experimental studies of decision-making.
Career
- 1950s
RAND research
Studied organisations and information processing.
- 1950s–1970s
Carnegie collaboration
Built a lasting partnership with Herbert Simon in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology.
- 1980s–1992
Unified models
Worked on the Soar architecture and broader theories of cognition.
Contributions
Logic Theorist
With Simon and Cliff Shaw, developed a program that proved mathematical theorems.
General Problem Solver
Helped build an early attempt at a general reasoning program.
Unified Theories of Cognition
Presented his approach to combining cognitive processes within one framework.
Beyond work
Family
Shared a long marriage with Noël Newell.
Campus computing
Helped develop Carnegie Mellon’s Andrew computing environment.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Career and contributions ↗Original photograph. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
Photo: Creator not stated; see image source. Copyrighted image; source credit retained · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.