Barbara J. Grosz

Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

A.B., 1969, Mathematics, Cornell University
M.A., 1971, Ph.D., 1977, Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley
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Multi-agent systems, collaborative human-computer interface design, natural-language processing, artificial intelligence

One of the major challenges for computer science in the next decade is to create the scientific and technological base for easy-to-use, large-scale information systems. Better systems for human-computer communication are an essential part of this challenge, and. theories and models of collaboration are needed to provide foundations for constructing systems able to work with each other and with the people using them.

Professor Grosz's research group addresses fundamental problems in modeling collaborative activity, developing systems ("agents") able to collaborate with each other and their users, and constructing collaborative, multi-modal systems for human-computer communication. Professor Grosz is also attempting to identify the basic structures and processes by which people use natural languages to communicate, focusing in particular on the mechanisms involved in dialogue and spontaneous speech.

Professor Grosz's research group uses the SharedPlans model of collaboration in developing intelligent computer "agents" that work together in teams. This model handles arbitrary numbers of agents and multiple levels of action decomposition, and it is comprehensive in its treatment of partiality of belief and intention. The research group is also addressing fundamental questions of coordination and group decision making in the context of group of activity.

Professor Grosz has developed a theory of discourse structure that specifies how discourse interpretation depends on interactions among speaker intentions, attentional state, and linguistic form. She has been using the theory to study the use of intonation to convey information about discourse structure, for instance how tones demark, in spoken language, some of the structure that paragraphs and parentheses indicate in written language. This work is likely to lead to better computer speech-synthesis systems.

These two strands of research are being combined in an effort (joint with Professor Stuart Shieber) that aims to provide the scientific and technological base for a new paradigm for human-computer interaction, one that would enable the principled design of multi-modal dialogue-supporting interfaces. This research is investigating ways in which a theoretical understanding of collaborative activity can inform in a principled manner the design of concrete software interfaces.


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