Ken Forbus Receives Humboldt Research Award From German Foundation

Ken Forbus, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the McCormick School of Engineering, has received a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany.

The Humboldt award is granted to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their disciplines, and who are expected to continue their cutting-edge achievements.

Forbus came to Northwestern in 1990 after receiving his PhD in artificial intelligence from MIT. His areas of expertise include qualitative reasoning, spatial reasoning, analogical reasoning and learning, learning from natural language, and inference engine design. He currently serves as chair of the Cognitive Science Society, a nonprofit professional organization that promotes research interactions across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Forbus’ award was granted in recognition of his accomplishments in research and teaching, and includes an invitation to collaborate with colleagues in Germany.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time researching in Germany. The foundation maintains a network of more than 25,000 award winners from all disciplines in over 130 countries worldwide, including 48 Nobel Laureates.