Leslie P. Kaelbling facts for kids

Leslie Pack Kaelbling is an American scientist who works with robots and computers. She is a special professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is known for making smart computer programs. These programs help robots make decisions, even when they don't have all the information.

In 1997, she won the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award. This award was for her work on teaching computers to learn. She helped create tools that guide robots. In 2000, she became a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. This means she is recognized as a top expert in her field.

About Leslie Kaelbling's Career

Leslie Kaelbling studied at Stanford University. She earned her first degree in Philosophy in 1983. Later, in 1990, she received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the same university.

After her studies, she worked at SRI International. This is a research center that helps create new technologies. She also worked at Teleos Research, a company that came from SRI. Later, she became a professor at Brown University. In 1999, she moved to MIT to join their faculty.

What Leslie Kaelbling Researches

Her main research focuses on how computers and robots can make good decisions. This is especially important when they don't have all the facts. She also studies machine learning. This is where computers learn from data without being directly programmed. Her work helps robots understand their surroundings. It also helps them act smartly in the real world.

Starting the Journal of Machine Learning Research

In the year 2000, something big happened in the world of science journals. Leslie Kaelbling and many other editors left a journal called Machine Learning. They were unhappy because the journal charged money to read old articles. Authors also did not get much money for their work.

Why a New Journal Was Needed

Because of this, Leslie Kaelbling helped start a new journal. It was called the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR). She was its first editor-in-chief. This new journal was different because it was open access. This means anyone can read the articles for free online. Authors can also publish their work for free and keep the rights to it.

The old journal, Kluwer, changed its rules after this. They started letting authors share their papers online for free. Leslie Kaelbling said this new rule was good. She noted that if they had done this earlier, a new journal might not have been needed. But the editors had asked for this change for a long time. It only happened after they threatened to leave and after JMLR was created.

Key Works by Leslie Kaelbling

Leslie Kaelbling has written many important papers. These papers have helped shape the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. Here are a few examples of her influential work:

• Reinforcement Learning: A Survey (1996): This paper is a widely read overview of reinforcement learning. This is a type of machine learning where computers learn by trying things and getting rewards or punishments.
• Planning and acting in partially observable stochastic domains (1998): This work explores how robots can plan and act when they don't have complete information about their environment.
• Acting under uncertainty: Discrete Bayesian models for mobile-robot navigation (1997): This paper discusses how robots can use special models to navigate when things are uncertain.
• Hierarchical task and motion planning in the now (2011): This research looks at how robots can plan complex tasks and movements in real-time.

See also

In Spanish: Leslie Pack Kaelbling para niños