Pattie Maes (°1961)
Profession: Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT
Nationality: Belgian
Why an honorary doctorate?
In 2001 Pattie Maes, VUB alumna, receives an honorary doctorate from VUB.
Technology par excellence
Maes is the lively link between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and our university, where she used to do her PhD in the not too distant past. She leaves the technological world in her wake with her research into self-learning software and the fascinating, pioneering relationship between man and machine.
A university would not be a university if it did not constantly strive for innovation and push back frontiers; if it did not constantly warm itself at the fire of discovery, progress, and development in every field. For itself, for the student, for society, for man.
Pattie Maes' contributions are of a highly remarkable and indispensable level, always with a view to tomorrow.
Technology, the mother of progress. She pushes and challenges, throws a spanner in the works and pulls it out, and asks questions. Discovering new territories and meeting challenges is fascinating. Always wanting more, people often let themselves be led by (the choices of) others. The influence of the others, isn't that sometimes to our disadvantage? Does it not cast a shadow over one’s own reasoning, finding, feeling and needing? Food for thought.
“We like to invent new disciplines or look at new problems, and invent bandwagons rather than jump on them.”
About her career
Woman for progress
1989. Pattie Maes has had her doctorate in computer science from the Free University of Brussels for two years when she decides to pursue her career overseas. She leaves for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, where she researches artificial intelligence. There, she works with Rodney Brooks, a well-known Australian robotics expert.
1991. Maes begins teaching Media Arts & Sciences at MIT's Media Lab. The institute has a shining image: its staff and graduates include top officials, astronauts, scientists, and well-known politicians. She leads the Fluid Interfaces research group, which is passionately engaged in reinventing the human-machine experience. Maes loves the subject of cognitive enhancement.
1995. Pattie Maes is an academic but also an entrepreneur. She co-founds Firefly Networks, a company specialising in wireless infrastructure services, which is sold to Microsoft in 1998. She co-founds Open Ratings, which later becomes the property of the well-known Dun & Bradstreet.
She also writes books and edits for professional journals and conferences. The compliments on her talent stream in in quick succession. ‘Fast Company’, an American business magazine that focuses on technology among other things, named her one of the 50 most influential designers. ‘Time Digital' chose her as a member of the Cyber Elite, or the fifty best technological pioneers from high-tech land.
Her TED talk on the 6th sense device is one of the most watched talks ever. TED is a non-profit organisation that provides a platform for spreading ideas through short, spirited talks, in over 100 languages.
What is an honorary doctorate?
VUB has awarded honorary doctorates every year since 1978 to personalities from the most diverse backgrounds who have made a remarkable contribution to their field and to society. From this solemn moment of recognition, they bear the honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa of VUB.