Patrick Henry Winston
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| Born | (1943-02-05)February 5, 1943
Peoria, Illinois, U.S.
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| Died | July 19, 2019(2019-07-19) (aged 76)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | MIT (BS 1965, MS 1967, PhD 1970) [1] |
| Awards | IJCAI Computers and Thought Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Artificial Intelligence Computer Science |
| Thesis | Learning Structural Descriptions from Examples (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Marvin Minsky |
| Doctoral students | David Waltz Philip Greenspun |
| Website | Personal homepage |
Patrick Henry Winston (February 5, 1943 – July 19, 2019) was an American computer scientist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Winston was director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 1972 to 1997, succeeding Marvin Minsky, who left to help found the MIT Media Lab. Winston was succeeded as director by Rodney Brooks.
Winston received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1965, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and went on to complete his Masters and PhD there as well, finalizing his PhD in 1970. Winston's thesis work with Marvin Minsky concerned the difficulty of learning; he concluded it was only possible to learn something one nearly already knows.[2] His research interests included machine learning and human intelligence. Winston was known within the MIT community for his excellent teaching and strong commitment to supporting MIT undergraduate culture.[3]
At MIT, Winston taught 6.034: Artificial Intelligence and 6.803/6.833: Human Intelligence 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."[4] A book with his insights and teachings on communication was published in 2020 by the MIT Press: "Make It Clear: Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform".[5]
Winston served as president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence from 1985–1987.
Winston also authored a number of computer science and AI textbooks, including:
Winston died in Boston on July 19, 2019.[6]
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