Rate My Professor Alex Pentland

Alex Pentland, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is a pioneering figure in computer science renowned for his contributions to computational social science, organizational engineering, wearable computing, image understanding, and modern biometrics. He earned his B.S. in computer science from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in computer science, psychology, and artificial intelligence from MIT. Throughout his career, Pentland has held key leadership roles, including directing MIT's Human Dynamics Laboratory, the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, and the MIT Connection Science Research Initiative. He previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and Media Lab Asia at the Indian Institutes of Technology. Additionally, he serves as a HAI Fellow at Stanford and has appointments in MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and Sloan School of Management. Pentland's influence extends to public policy and global initiatives; he co-leads World Economic Forum projects on big data and personal data that contributed to the EU GDPR privacy regulation, and he is a board member of the UN Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and co-leader of the IEEE Council on Extended Intelligence. His advisory roles have included boards for Google, AT&T, Nissan, Telefonica, and the UN Secretary General.