Visiting Researcher - Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland

In early May 2005, the Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety - Queensland (CARRS-Q) hosted a visit by world-renowned information technology expert, Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland.

Professor Pentland shared his expansive IT knowledge with audiences at two seminars during his visit.  His seminar topic, “Human Dynamics” focused on his current area of research.

Profile

Professor Pentland is a pioneer in wearable computers, health systems, smart environments, and technology for developing countries and heads MIT’s Media Lab's Human Dynamics research group.

Professor Pentland is one of the most-cited computer scientists in the world.  He is a co-founder of the Wearable Computing research community, the Autonomous Mental Development research community, the Centre for Future Health, the international Digital Nations Consortium, and was the founding director of the Media Lab Asia.

He was formerly the Academic Head of the MIT Media Laboratory, and is the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences.  Professor Pentland has won numerous international awards in the Arts, Sciences and Engineering.  Newsweek magazine named him one of 100 Americans most likely to shape the next century.

Professor Pentland did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, and earned his PhD from MIT. He lectured at Stanford before returning to MIT in 1986 to help build the Media Laboratory's research and academic program.

Seminar Overview

Human behaviour is almost always composed of stereotypical sequences of actions.  These sequences may be modelled by dynamic Bayes networks, with transitions between internal states and switching between sequences influenced by external variables; in many interesting cases these external variables are the actions of other people.

We [MIT Media Lab researchers] have been able to use machine learning techniques to model these stereotypical sequences and their dependency on the actions of other people, allowing us to create a wide range of 'smart' interactions.  Examples include car driving, daily behaviour patterns, social interaction, organisational behaviour and more.

For more information about Professor Pentland and his research, please visit his web site: www.media.mit.edu