Daniel Huttenlocher

Daniel Huttenlocher is an American computer scientist and academic administrator known for his pioneering work in computer vision and his leadership in establishing major academic institutions. He has served as the inaugural dean of the Cornell Tech campus in New York City and as the inaugural dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His career bridges foundational research in artificial intelligence and the strategic development of interdisciplinary academic enterprises focused on technology and society.

Early life and education

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Huttenlocher completed his undergraduate studies in computer science at the University of Michigan, earning a Bachelor of Science degree. He then pursued graduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Under the supervision of prominent researchers, he earned both a Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy in computer science, focusing his doctoral research on problems in computer vision and machine learning.

Academic career

Following his doctorate, Huttenlocher joined the faculty of Cornell University in the Department of Computer Science. He rose through the academic ranks, eventually holding the title of John P. and R. Nevanlinna Professor in the Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. His research group made significant contributions to graphical models and object recognition, influencing the broader field of artificial intelligence. He also held an appointment as a principal scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, collaborating on early document image analysis systems.

Leadership at Cornell Tech

In 2012, Huttenlocher was appointed the inaugural dean and vice provost of Cornell Tech, a groundbreaking graduate campus established through a partnership between Cornell University and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The campus, located on Roosevelt Island in New York City, was conceived following a competition initiated by then-Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg. Huttenlocher led the academic planning, faculty hiring, and construction of the campus, fostering a model centered on applied science, technology commercialization, and interdisciplinary hubs like the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute.

Role at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

In 2019, Huttenlocher returned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the inaugural dean of the newly established MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. The college was created following a historic gift from Stephen A. Schwarzman to advance computing and artificial intelligence education and research across all disciplines at MIT. In this role, he oversees the integration of computing with fields such as biology, economics, and the humanities, while addressing critical issues of ethics and social impact.

Research and contributions

Huttenlocher's research has centered on computer vision, machine learning, and social media analysis. His early work on Hausdorff distance for image matching became a foundational technique. He co-authored a widely cited textbook on probabilistic graphical models with colleagues from the University of Washington. His later work examined the structure and dynamics of online communities on platforms like Flickr and YouTube, contributing to the field of computational social science. He holds several U.S. patents related to image processing.

Awards and honors

Hunttenlocher is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research has been recognized with awards including the Longuet-Higgins Prize from the IEEE Computer Society. He has served on the board of directors for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and on the technical advisory board of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Category:American computer scientists Category:MIT faculty Category:Cornell University faculty Category:1950s births Category:Living people