A rising AI star: Daphne Koller

For such a young professor, Daphne Koller of Stanford University's Computer Science Department has already received tremendous recognition for her work. In 1999, she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by President Clinton, as well as the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award. Last summer, she received the prestigious IJCAI Computer and Thought Award, which recognizes outstanding young scientists in AI. She joined previous winners and AI luminaries such as Rodney Brooks, Patrick Winston, Tom Mitchell, Hector Levesque, Johan de Kleer, Terry Winograd, and Martha Pollack. Koller is held in the highest regard throughout the AI research community for her pioneering work in decision-making tools that model uncertainty in complex domains. She builds on the framework of probability theory, decision theory, and game theory, and uses techniques from AI and computer science to apply this framework to complex real-world problems. Recently she began applying it to biomedicine with promising results.