Alan K. Mackworth
Alan K. Mackworth is an AI researcher associated with UBC’s Laboratory for Computational Intelligence, which he helped establish as its founding director. His work uses constraints in vision, robotics and intelligent-agent design, including robot soccer and hybrid systems. He studied at Toronto, Harvard and Sussex and was elected an AAAI Fellow in 1990. His coauthored books, published in 1998 and 2010, present logical and agent-based approaches to AI.
- Works
- 226
- Citations
- 8,943
- h-index
- 34
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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Education and early career
A path into computational intelligence
Mackworth studied at Toronto, Harvard and Sussex. He was the founding director of UBC’s Laboratory for Computational Intelligence.
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Research career
Constraints for perception and action
Mackworth worked on constraint-based AI with applications in vision, robotics, situated agents and assistive technology. His work includes constraint satisfaction, robot soccer, hybrid systems and constraint-based agents. These areas study how rules and restrictions can organize perception and behavior in interacting systems.
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1990
AAAI fellowship
Mackworth is among the 1990 AAAI Fellows. He also served as president of AAAI and held leadership roles in the Canadian AI community.
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1998–2010
Explaining intelligent agents
Mackworth coauthored Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach in 1998 and Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents in 2010.
Sources and credits
Photo: Markus Pickartz. License: Not stated by source. Source: cs.ubc.ca. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.