Carissa Bunnell

Born in Brussels Belgium in 1961 Pattie Maes describes her childhood to be different compared to most other computer scientists. She states that she grew up playing with legos and barbies rather than being in computer clubs and taking apart radios as most
other computer innovators do. Having a different childhood Maes feels gives her a unique perspective on her work (Maes, 2010). Dr. Maes obtained her Bachelors degree and Ph. D in Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels Belgium. Her areas of expertise include artificial intelligence, human computer interaction, computer supported collaborative work, information filtering, and electronic commerce.Pattie’s main focus of research is in software agents which combines multiple areas of her expertise.The software agents are computer programs that help users sort information and complxity online. Maes and her team invented a new algorithm to help build such software (Aaronson, Allhoff, Angelica 2009). Currently Dr. Maes works at MIT in the Media Laboratory as an assistant professor where she founded and directs the Software Agents Group. Pattie was brought to MIT as a visiting professor and researcher for the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory where the director of the lab saw her innovative approach and offered her a position working in the lab (Lambert, 2005). In 1989 when Pattie first began working at MIT she programmed Ghengis, the lab’s first robot with legs that could teach itseld to walk. Shortly after this, Pattie began working on Agent studies at MIT. Agent studies is a computer program that observes how a person handles situations then copies the decisions made. Once she was promoted to associate professor in 1995, Maes started her own company called Firefly Networks. The company founded a prototype that collected and prioritized data online (Holloway, 1997). Open Ratings Inc. is another business Dr. Maes started and is a provider
of performance data on business eCommerce. Pattie also founded the Agent Society which is an international industry and professional organization that was established to assist in the widespread developing and emerging intelligent agent technologies.
Mrs. Maes is a very distinguished researcher in her fields. She has wrote three books and numerous articles published in professional journals. She’s received accolades such as 100 most influential netizens, a member of the Cyber Elite, a title of “Global Leader for Tomorrow” and in 200 she was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council (Aaronson, et.al., 2009).