Michael Littman
University Professor of Computer Science and Associate Provost for AI at Brown University
A Brown University reinforcement learning researcher who led the National Science Foundation's AI division and chairs the AI100 study panels.
Biography
Michael Littman is a computer scientist, researcher, educator and author whose research focuses on reinforcement learning. He is University Professor of Computer Science at Brown University and, since July 2025, its inaugural Associate Provost for Artificial Intelligence. He earned his PhD in computer science from Brown in 1996.
At Duke from 1996 to 1999 he worked on the automated crossword solver PROVERB, which won an AAAI Outstanding Paper Award in 1999. He worked at AT&T from 2000 to 2002 and was a professor at Rutgers from 2002 to 2012 before returning to Brown. From 2022 to 2025 he was Division Director for Information and Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation, where he co-led the 2023 National Strategic AI Research and Development plan. He chaired the panel for the One Hundred-Year Study on AI's 2021 report and will chair the standing committee for the 2026 report.
Notable contributions
Built the PROVERB crossword solver
Worked on PROVERB, an automated crossword solver that won an Outstanding Paper Award from AAAI in 1999.
Led the NSF's AI division
Served as Division Director for Information and Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation from 2022 to 2025 and co-led the 2023 National Strategic AI R&D plan.
Chaired the AI100 study panel
Chaired the panel for the One Hundred-Year Study on Artificial Intelligence's 2021 report.