Barbara J. Grosz
Also known as Barbara Grosz
Barbara J. Grosz studies dialogue and collaborative action, including shared models of discourse structure and group planning. Grosz received her mathematics degree at Cornell in 1969 and computer science doctorate at Berkeley in 1977. She worked as a researcher at SRI from 1973 to 1986, including leadership of its natural language program. She became a Harvard professor in 1986 and cofounded CSLI. Grosz served as dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute from 2008 to 2011 after earlier science and interim dean roles. During this period, she also conducted shared research on helping behavior in collaborative planning and decisions in mixed networks of agents. These responsibilities ran alongside her AI program.
- Now at
- Harvard University
- Works
- 252
- Citations
- 13,252
- h-index
- 43
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1969–1986
Education and research laboratories
Grosz received her mathematics degree at Cornell in 1969 and computer science doctorate at Berkeley in 1977. She worked as a researcher at SRI from 1973 to 1986, including leadership of its natural language program. She became a Harvard professor in 1986 and cofounded CSLI.
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1986–1995
Models of discourse
With Candace Sidner, she published work on attention, intentions and discourse structure in 1986. With Aravind Joshi and Scott Weinstein, she published the centering framework for local discourse coherence in 1995. These shared publications studied structure within language use.
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1996–1999
Collaborative planning
Grosz and Sarit Kraus published a model of plans for complex group action in 1996. Their later account of SharedPlans appeared in 1999. The 1996 paper received the IFAAMAS influential paper award in 2007.
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2008–2011
Leadership at Radcliffe
Grosz served as dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute from 2008 to 2011 after earlier science and interim dean roles. During this period, she also conducted shared research on helping behavior in collaborative planning and decisions in mixed networks of agents. These responsibilities ran alongside her AI program.
Sources and credits
Photo: Bengt Oberger, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
