Judea Pearl Bio

• B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technion, Haifa, Israel, in 1960;
• Master degree in Physics from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1965;
• Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY in 1965.

Before coming to UCLA, I worked at RCA Research Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey, on superconductive parametric and storage devices and at Electronic Memories, Inc., Hawthorne, California, on advanced memory systems. I joined UCLA in 1970.

My current interests are:

• Artificial intelligence
• Probabilistic and causal reasoning
• Philosophy and history of science

I have published a fair number of papers in these areas, and authored 4 books:

• Heuristics, Addison-Wesley, 1984
• Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems, Morgan-Kaufmann, 1988
• Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference, Cambridge University Press, 2000; 2nd edition, 2009.
• Causal Inference in Statistics: A Primer, (with Madelyn Glymour and Nicholas P. Jewell) Wiley, 2016.
• The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect (with Dana Mackenzie), New York: Basic Books, May 2018

• Op-Eds

Awards and other frills:

• • Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Statistical Society (March 4, 2020),
  • Elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association (2019), (UCLA Newsroom)
  • Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, (2018)
  • Honorary Doctorate, Yale University, May 20 (2018)
  • UCLA Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award (citation) (2018)
  • American Mathematical Society, Ulf Grenander Prize – (citation) (2018)
  • Sells Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in Multivariate Experimental Psychology (2016)
  • ACM Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (2015)
  • Dickson Prize, Carnegie Mellon University (2015)
  • Artificial Intelligence Journal Classic Paper Award (2015)
  • John C. Cassel Memorial Lecture, Society of Epidemiologic Research, June 17, 2015
  • Honorary Doctorate, Carnegie Mellon University, 2015
  • Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2014
  • Honorary Doctorate Degree from Texas A&M, May 9, 2014
  • Lynford Lecture and Distinguished Alumni Award, NYU-Polytechnic, November 4, 2013
  • Medallion Lecture, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, JSM-2013, August 2013
  • Special Issue honoring Judea Pearl, Cognitive Science Journal, August 2013
  • Appointed “Distinguished Visiting Professor of Computer Science,” Technion, Israel Institute of Technology (2013)
  • ACM A.M. Turing Award (For “innovations that enabled remarkable advances in the partnership between humans and machines that is the foundation of Artificial Intelligence (AI)”) (2012)
  • Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2012)
  • Harvey Prize (For “foundational work that has touched a multitude of spheres of modern life”) (2012)
  • Fellow, Cognitive Science Society, (2011)
  • David E. David E. Rumelhart Prize (For Outstanding Contributions to the Theoretical Foundations of Human Cognition) (2011)
  • Rumelhart Lecture, “The Algorithmization of Counterfactuals” (Cognitive Science Society, July 21, 2011)
  • Rumelhart Prize Symposium, (July 21, 2011)
  • Robots and Free Will (Interview with R. Bingham, July 21, 2011)
  • IEEE AI’s Hall-of-Fame (August, 2011)    (All recipients) (2011)
  • Otis Dudley Duncan Memorial Lecture (American Sociological Society, Atlanta August 16, 2010)
  • Festschrift and symposium in honor of Judea Pearl (2010)
    • Heuristics, Probability and Causality: A Tribute to Judea Pearl, R. Dechter, H. Geffner, and J.Y. Halpern (Eds.), College Publication, 2010.
  • Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from Chapman University, Orange, CA and keynote speaker at the 2008 Undergraduate Commencement (2008)
  • 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computers and Cognitive Science (video), “For creating the first general algorithms for computing and reasoning with uncertain evidence” (2008)
  • Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from the University of Toronto, in recognition of “groundbreaking contributions to the field of computer science…” Video of Commencement speech.(2007)
  • Purpose Prize (2006) honoring seniors who take on “society’s biggest challenges,” selected for creating the Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding – a traveling public-dialogue program that promotes respectful and honest exchange between Jews and Muslims.
  • AAAI Classic Paper Award (2006)
  • UCLA Engineer, Faculty News (2004), “A Profile of Judea Pearl – Computer Science Pioneer, Visionary”

• 2003 Allen Newell Award (2004)
• Pekeris Memorial Lecture (2003)
• Corresponding Member, Spanish Academy of Engineering (2002)
• Lakatos Award (2001)
• AAAI Classic Paper Award (2000)
• IJCAI Research Excellence Award in Artificial Intelligence (1999)
• UCLA 81st Faculty Research Lecturer (1996)
• Member, National Academy of Engineering (1995)
• Fellow, American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) (1990),
• Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) (1988),
• NATO Senior Fellowship in Science (1975)
• RCA Laboratories Achievement Award (1965)

Hobbies:

• Music: Tenor, Guitar, Choir conducting
• Early Printed Books: Science, Philosophy, Judaica
• History of Science

References

1. http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/stat_bio.html