The American Computer and Robotics Museum in Bozeman will recognize five innovators at the upcoming Stibitz-Wilson Awards ceremony, scheduled for September 26. The event, which is open to the public and free of charge, will take place at The Ellen Theater in downtown Bozeman.
This year’s honorees include Serge Belongie and Pietro Perona, who lead the Visipedia project. Visipedia combines human expertise and machine learning to create a visual encyclopedia that supports widely used nature identification apps such as iNaturalist and Merlin Bird ID. These apps have been downloaded over 30 million times. The project represents a collaboration between research groups at Caltech and Cornell University.
Pietro Perona focuses on developing algorithms for visual recognition with minimal human supervision. His work includes methods for assessing algorithmic accuracy and bias in applications like face recognition. He is the Allen E. Puckett Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech.
Serge Belongie is a professor at the University of Copenhagen, where he heads the Pioneer Centre for Artificial Intelligence. His research covers computer vision, machine learning, augmented reality, and assistive technology for people with visual impairments.
Lorrie Cranor from Carnegie Mellon University will also be honored. She directs CyLab Security and Privacy Institute and has made significant contributions to online privacy and usable security research. Cranor has published more than 200 papers in these fields and has provided expert testimony before Congress as well as federal regulatory agencies.
Yasmin Kafai, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, helped develop Scratch—a programming language widely used to teach coding skills to children—and promotes electronic textiles as a way to introduce computing concepts in schools.
Mitchel Resnick from MIT Media Lab leads efforts to design technologies that encourage creative learning among young people. His group developed Scratch software and collaborated with LEGO on educational products such as LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits.
The selection committee for the Stibitz-Wilson Awards includes members from Montana State University (MSU), past award recipients, and representatives from the museum’s board of directors. Previous honorees have included Nobel laureates Jennifer Doudna and Jack Kilby; National Medal of Technology recipients Ralph Baer, Federico Faggin, Mary Shaw; Turing Award winner Robert Metcalfe; as well as Montana-based researchers David Andes, Rufus Cone, Diana Six, and David Quammen.
Montana State University’s Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering along with its Office of the President, Office of Research and Economic Development, College of Letters and Science, and Honors College are longstanding sponsors of the awards.
“I’m so proud of the close connection between MSU and the Stibitz-Wilson Awards,” said Barbara Keremedjiev, ACRM co-founder and board president. “It was always our intention that this awards event would energize not only the wider Bozeman community, but also the amazingly talented students and faculty at MSU.”
Established in 1997 by ACRM, these awards honor innovators in computational or biological sciences. They are named after engineer George Stibitz—an early pioneer in digital computing—and biologist Edward O. Wilson—renowned for his contributions to understanding biodiversity.
Further details about the event can be found at acrmuseum.org/awards or by contacting Eleanor Barker via email or phone.
