Photo by Tony Rinaldo

Dean of the Radcliffe Institute and Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Barbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, was appointed dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in April 2008. 

A prominent computer scientist with wide-ranging intellectual interests, Grosz served as interim dean of the Radcliffe Institute from July 2007 to April 2008 and as Radcliffe’s first dean of science from 2001 to 2007. In this latter role, she built a highly successful model for Radcliffe science fellowships that incorporates laboratory research, fosters engagement with the scientific communities at Harvard University and in Boston, and encompasses a wide range of scientific fields.

As dean of science, Grosz helped to significantly increase the quantity and quality of science applicants to the Radcliffe Institute. Among recent science fellows are Oded Goldreich, a computer scientist whose research has contributed significantly to cryptography; Lisa Randall, a physicist whose groundbreaking work has explored the possibilities of unseen spatial dimensions in the universe; and Maria Zuber—a geophysicist, planetary scientist, and the first woman to lead a science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—who produced a topographical map of Mars that is considered the most accurate topography model for any planet, including Earth.

Grosz has helped Radcliffe fellows organize focused research groups (clusters) to foster interdisciplinary work during their fellowship year. In 2002–2003, for example, she worked with Harvard faculty from three departments to form a cosmology cluster of six Radcliffe fellows. The cluster, composed of planetary scientists and theoretical physicists, also collaborated with scholars at MIT, Tufts University, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. A 2007–2008 cluster on the interactive visualization of musical structure worked to develop computer models for music.

Under Grosz's leadership, the Radcliffe science program grew to include exploratory seminars, lectures, panel discussions, and symposia on a range of cutting-edge scientific topics. Recently, she coordinated a Radcliffe Institute symposium on tissue engineering, an interdisciplinary field focused on developing replacement cells and tissues for clinical use. The symposium convened leading international scientists, engineers, and clinicians to share, with an audience of more than 180 people, new perspectives on replacements for failing organ systems.

Grosz has been a member of the Harvard faculty since 1986, first as the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and currently as Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences. She is widely known for her contributions to artificial intelligence, especially in the areas of natural-language processing and multiagent systems. She developed some of the earliest and most influential computer dialogue systems and established the research field of computational modeling of discourse. Her research in computer science, focused on finding ways to make computers behave more intelligently, draws also on work in linguistics, psychology, economics, and philosophy. She has written influential papers on techniques for enabling computer systems to participate in dialogues in natural languages (for instance, English and Japanese) and for building systems that act collaboratively.

Grosz has been deeply involved in numerous Harvard-wide efforts, from serving on the Standing Committee on Athletics (1989–1991, 1992–1998, and 1999–present) and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Faculty Council to helping guide interdepartmental and interschool science and engineering as a member of the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC). She also has led several efforts aimed at increasing the participation of women in science. In 2005, she served as chair of the Task Force for Women in Science and Engineering, which analyzed and recommended ways to build and sustain the pipeline of women pursuing academic careers in science at Harvard, from undergraduate studies to graduate and postdoctoral work to advancement through faculty ranks. She was the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women when it issued the 1991 Report on Women in the Sciences at Harvard, which included recommendations for improving the recruitment and retention of women scientists at the University.

Grosz was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2008, the American Philosophical Society in 2003, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. She is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For her groundbreaking research that crosses disciplines, she is also the recipient of the ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award. In 1993, she became the first woman president of the AAAI. She serves on the executive committee and is a former trustee of the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence and serves on the council of the American Philosophical Society.

Grosz earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Cornell University and master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.

See Grosz's faculty research profile on the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Web site and the article, "Rebel, Builder, Boundary Crosser".