Dr. Murray Campbell

A Canadian computer scientist, he is a Senior Manager in the Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences Department at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, USA. The mission of the Services Modeling group is to apply deep technical expertise in areas such as optimization, forecasting, probabilistic analysis, and expertise sharing to a broad range of problems relevant to the IBM Services business. The primary focus is in the area of Business Analytics and Workforce Management, where solutions are developed that include services project/portfolio management, skill analytics, demand forecasting, workplace learning, workforce optimization, and strategic planning. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computing Science from the University of Alberta, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1987, and has been with IBM Research since 1989. Prior to this current position, he was involved in surveillance projects related to petroleum production, disease outbreak, and financial data. In earlier work, he was a member of the teams that developed chess machines: HiTech and a project to culminate in Deep Blue, the latter being the first computer to defeat the reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, in a challenge match, in 1997. Kasparov had won an earlier match the previous year. On February 5, 2007 he visited University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), located in Baltimore MD to present a speech called "IBM's Deep Blue: Ten Years After". In the University Center building, he presented the background that led up to the decisive match with Kasparov, reviewed the match itself (with Kasparov and similar matches), and explored some of the design decisions that were made when building Deep Blue. He put emphasis on some of the broader implications of Deep Blue's development and victory on the information technology industry and artificial intelligence. He, himself played chess at near National Master strength in Canada during his student days, but has not played competitively for more than 20 years. His peak Elo rating was around 2200. Among the honors and awards he has received are: North American Computer Chess Championship: Member of winning teams in 1985 (HiTech), 1987 (ChipTest), 1988 (Deep Thought), 1989 (HiTech and Deep Thought), 1990 (Deep Thought), 1991 (Deep Thought); and in 1994 (Deep Thought); as well as in 1989 World Computer Chess Championship, winning team (Deep Thought). He also shared the $100,000 Fredkin Prize with Feng-hsiung Hsu and A. Joseph Hoane Jr. in 1997. The prize was awarded for developing the first computer (Deep Blue) to defeat a reigning world chess champion in a match. He received the Allen Newell Research Excellence Medal in 1997, citing his contributions to Deep Blue (first computer to defeat a world chess champion), Deep Thought (first Grandmaster level computer) and HiTech (first Senior Master level computer). He was elected Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2012 for "significant contributions to computer game-playing, especially chess, and the associated improvement in public awareness of the AI endeavor."