PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Eric Backer

Eric Backer was a pattern-recognition researcher whose work included fuzzy clustering and cluster analysis. The IAPR named him a Fellow in 1994 for contributions to fuzzy clustering and service. He coauthored a 2002 maximum-variance cluster algorithm, helped found Pattern Recognition Letters and served as its Managing Editor for 22 years; a symposium in his honor took place in 2005. He died at 79 in 2020.

Timeline

  1. 1994

    An IAPR Fellowship

    The IAPR names Eric Backer of the Netherlands a Fellow in 1994 for contributions to fuzzy clustering and service to the association.

  2. 2002

    A maximum variance cluster algorithm

    With Cor J. Veenman and Marcel Reinders, he coauthors *A maximum variance cluster algorithm* in 2002 for IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

  3. 2004

    Pattern Recognition Letters editor

    In 2004, Tin Kam Ho takes over as editor-in-chief from Backer, one of the journal's two founders. Backer retires after 22 years as Managing Editor.

  4. 2005

    A symposium in his honor

    A symposium in his honor takes place in 2005 under the title *The Art and Science of Pattern Recognition*.

  5. 2020

    Death in Diepenheim

    He dies at 79 in April 2020 in Diepenheim.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. IAPR Fellows and Awards old.iapr.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Eric Backer | Rankless rankless.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. PRL old.iapr.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. The Art and Science of Pattern Recognition 37steps.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. IN MEMORIAM dev.etv.tudelft.nl. Checked 19 October 2026.