PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Dana H. Ballard

Also known as Dana Harry Ballard

Dana Ballard was a computer scientist who studied computer vision and the human visual system. He co-wrote the textbook Computer Vision with Christopher Brown in 1982, and he and Rajesh Rao published a predictive coding paper in Nature Neuroscience in 1999. He earned degrees at MIT, Michigan and UC Irvine before teaching at the University of Rochester from 1975 and at the University of Texas at Austin from 2006. UC Merced gave him its 2014 Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award, and MIT Press published his book Brain Computation as Hierarchical Abstraction in 2015. He died in November 2022 at the age of 76.

Timeline

  1. 1946–1967

    Early life and MIT

    He is born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1946, grows up in the Bahamas, and graduates from MIT in 1967.

  2. 1970–1974

    Graduate degrees at Michigan and Irvine

    He earns a master's in information and control engineering at Michigan in 1970 and a Ph.D. in information engineering at UC Irvine in 1974.

  3. 1975–2006

    Faculty at Rochester and Austin

    He joins the computer science faculty at the University of Rochester in 1975 and moves to the University of Texas at Austin in 2006.

  4. 1982–1985

    Computer Vision and binocular cameras

    He co-writes the textbook Computer Vision with Christopher Brown in 1982. In 1985 he leads a team that designs and builds a high-speed binocular camera control system capable of simulating human eye movements.

  5. 1999

    Predictive coding in vision

    He and Rajesh Rao publish 'Predictive coding in the visual cortex' in Nature Neuroscience in 1999.

  6. 2014

    A 2014 cognitive science award

    He receives the 2014 Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award from UC Merced.

  7. 2015

    A book on brain computation

    He publishes Brain Computation as Hierarchical Abstraction with MIT Press in 2015.

  8. 2022

    Death at age 76

    He dies in November 2022 at the age of 76.

Sources and credits

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  1. Dana Ballard Memorial Symposium at ICDL 2024 la.utexas.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Dana H. Ballard - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. UT Computer Science Mourns the Loss of Professor Dana Ballard | UT Austin Computer Science cs.utexas.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. Predictive coding in the visual cortex: a functional interpretation of some extra-classical receptive-field effects | Nature Neuroscience nature.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Dana Ballard Earns 2014 Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award | UT Austin Computer Science cs.utexas.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. Dr. Dana Ballard Publishes New Book, Titled "Brain Computation as Hierarchical Abstraction" | UT Austin Computer Science cs.utexas.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.