Abstract: One of mankind's greatest intellectual challenges has been the question, 'What is the mind?' The advent of computing has made it possible to pursue this grand challenge in previously inconceivable ways, and, in particular, in the last 10-15 years, we have achieved dramatic advances in our understanding of mind and intelligence. In this talk I will begin by describing the historical roots that have framed the computational study of intelligence to this very day. I will then present a survey of key results that demonstrate the exciting successes that we have achieved and the core reasons for them, as well as the tantalizing challenges - many only recently appreciated - that remain ahead. I'll conclude with the provocative idea that the computing technologies that now inform our understanding of intelligence may also be redefining the very notion of intelligence in ways that we are only beginning to recognize much less understand.

Short Bio: Haym Hirsh spent the first quarter-century of his life in California, receiving his BS degree in 1983 from the Mathematics and Computer Science departments at UCLA and his MS in 1985 and PhD in 1989 from the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. Unhappy with the weather, he moved to Pittsburgh when he found a way to spend his final year at Stanford at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. The following year he achieved his life-long dream of living in New Jersey by joining the faculty of the Computer Science Department at Rutgers University. Despite serving as Department Chair for three years, he is now pursuing further bureaucratic edification as Director of the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation. As part of his never-ending spiritual quest, he has also spent time as visiting faculty at the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Fall 1995, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT in Fall 1997, and the Information Systems Department at the Stern School of Business at NYU in Fall 2000 and Spring 2001.