Hector Geffner

Hector Geffner is an Argentinian computer scientist and a Alexander von Humboldt Professor of artificial intelligence at RWTH Aachen University^[1] and Wallenberg Guest Professor in AI at Linköping University.^[2] His research interests are focused on artificial intelligence, especially automated planning and the integration of model-based AI and data-based AI. He is best known for his work on domain-independent heuristic planning and received several International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS) influential paper awards.^[3] Previously he held a research professorship at ICREA and the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Group at University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona since 2001.^[1] He was a staff researcher at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1990 to 1992 and a professor at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, Venezuela from 1992 to 2001. Geffner was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant in 2020 to explore the connection between machine learning and model-based AI,^[4] and is a former board member and current fellow of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI).^[5] He was elected an AAAI Fellow in 2007.^[6]

Geffner received his PhD in computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1989 under the supervision of Judea Pearl on the topic Default Reasoning: Casual and Conditional Theories, for which he received an ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.^[1][7]