Contents
Raj Reddy
Pioneering speech recognition and artificial intelligence, and founding Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute.
Hearsay systems · Robotics Institute
- Born
- 13 June 1937
- Birthplace
- Katur, India
More people
Raj Reddy
Raj Reddy helped computers move beyond calculation towards recognising speech and interacting with the physical world. His research teams developed influential speech systems, while his institution-building connected computing with education and access to information.
Early life
Rural beginnings
Grew up in Katur and became the first member of his family to attend college.
Engineering to computing
Studied civil engineering in Madras, then technology in Australia before completing a Stanford doctorate in 1966.
Career
- 1960–1966
IBM and doctoral research
Worked for IBM in Australia before studying artificial intelligence under John McCarthy at Stanford.
- 1966–1969
Stanford faculty
Taught and researched speech recognition before moving to Carnegie Mellon.
- 1979–1999
Building institutions
Became founding director of the Robotics Institute, then dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science.
Contributions
Hearsay systems
Helped develop systems that combined different kinds of knowledge to recognise connected speech.
Robotics Institute
Established a major centre for research on intelligent machines.
Turing Award
Shared the award with Edward Feigenbaum for large-scale artificial-intelligence systems.
Beyond computing
Rural education
Helped establish institutions in India intended to widen access to advanced technical education.
Digital libraries
Supported efforts to digitise books and make knowledge more widely accessible.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Institutional biography and research ↗Photo: Xuthoria. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
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