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Pattie Maes

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Pattie Maes
Maes at the Dubai Future Forum, 2024
Born1961 (age 63–64)
Brussels, Belgium
CitizenshipBelgium
Alma materVrije Universiteit Brussel
Known forwork on software agents, collaborative filtering, human–computer interfaces
Scientific career
FieldsComputer Science
InstitutionsVrije Universiteit Brussel, MIT
Thesis Computational Reflection  (1987)
Doctoral advisorLuc Steels[1]
Doctoral studentsMarcelo Coelho
Pranav Mistry
Michael Best

Pattie Maes (born 1961) is a Belgian scientist. She is a professor in MIT's program in Media Arts and Sciences.[2] She founded and directed the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group.[3][4] Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. She served for several years as both the head and associate head of the Media Lab's academic program. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.

She holds bachelor's degree in computer science and PhD degree in AI from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.[5] She did post-graduate work at MIT under Rodney Brooks and Marvin Minsky.[6]

Maes launched the Software Agents Group at the Lab in 1991. One of the main projects from the group was the Helpful Online Music Recommendations (HOMR), later renamed “Ringo” in 1994. Users would rate a random sampling of music artists on a scale from 1 to 7. This creates a user profile. The system would look for similar users preference profiles, and email recommendations to the users of what the users might also enjoy. This was an early example of collaborative filtering recommender system.[7] It led to Firefly, the first commercial music recommendation website, launched in 1995-10. It was launched from the Lab, since the existing companies doubted that collaborative filtering was commercially viable. It was an early example of social media.[6]

Maes' areas of expertise are human–computer interaction, intelligent interfaces and ubiquitous computing.[8] Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences.[9][10]

Currently she leads the Fluid Interfaces group at the Lab, which focuses on technological cognitive augmentation.[11]

She has received several awards: Newsweek magazine named her one of the "100 people for the new century";[12][13] TIME Digital selected her as a member of the Cyber-Elite (the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world); the World Economic Forum honored her with the title Global Leader for Tomorrow; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. A former model in Belgium, Maes was listed in People Magazine's annual 50 Most Beautiful People feature in 1997.[14]

Maes is married to computer graphics researcher Karl Sims.[14]

Books

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  • Designing Autonomous Agents: Theory and Practice from Biology to Engineering and Back. MIT Press, 1991, ISBN 0-262-63135-0
  • Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, Rodney Brooks & Pattie Maes, MIT Press, 1994, ISBN 0-262-52190-3

References

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  1. ^ "Luc Steels: Students – Graduated PhD students". VUB ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LAB. Retrieved July 28, 2014.
  2. ^ "Person Overview ‹ Pattie Maes". MIT Media Lab. Retrieved January 24, 2025.
  3. ^ Fink, Charlie. "The Inevitability Of Augmented Reality HMDs". Forbes. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  4. ^ Johnson, Carolyn Y.; Svrluga, Susan (September 17, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein, the academy and questions about male dominance in science". Washington Post. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  5. ^ "Leadership transition announced for MIT Media Lab". MIT News. September 10, 2019. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  6. ^ a b Johnson, Steven (April 2022). "Pattie Maes and the foundations of social networks". hiddenheroes.netguru.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2025. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  7. ^ Shardanand, Upendra; Maes, Pattie (1995). "Social information filtering: algorithms for automating "word of mouth"". ACM Press: 210–217. doi:10.1145/223904.223931. ISBN 978-0-201-84705-5. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. ^ "Pattie Maes develops a plant-robot hybrid and other news from the TED community". TED Blog. December 21, 2018. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  9. ^ "TED Reveals Top 20 Most-Watched Talks, Sir Ken Robinson Tops The List". TechCrunch. August 22, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  10. ^ "Innovation Outreach: Boston to Unpack Global Impact of Disruptive Tech". The Sociable. October 9, 2019. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  11. ^ "Group Overview ‹ Fluid Interfaces". MIT Media Lab. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  12. ^ "The Century Club". Newsweek. April 20, 1997. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
  13. ^ Holloway, Marguerite (December 1, 1997). "Pattie". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
  14. ^ a b "Pattie Maes – Most Beautiful". People.com. May 12, 1997. Archived from the original on February 9, 2011.
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