PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Also known as Josh Tenenbaum, Joshua Tenenbaum

Joshua B. Tenenbaum is an MIT cognitive scientist who studies how human learning can inform artificial intelligence. He earned a BS at Yale and a PhD at MIT, joined Stanford after a brief MIT AI Lab postdoc, and returned to MIT in 2002. With Charles Kemp, he developed a model that inferred a tree for animal species and a linear order for Supreme Court justices from decision data; other work connects Bayesian accounts of categorization and causal inference with simulations of intuitive physics and psychology. He received the Troland Research Award in 2011 and the MacArthur Fellowship in 2019.

Works
1,025
Citations
77,120
h-index
111

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.

Photo of Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Timeline

  1. 1993–1999

    From Yale to MIT

    He earned a BS from Yale University in 1993 and a PhD from MIT in 1999.

  2. 1999–2002

    A first faculty post

    After a brief postdoc with the MIT AI Lab, he joined Stanford University as an assistant professor of psychology in 1999. He returned to MIT as a faculty member in 2002.

  3. By 2009

    Learning structure from examples

    With Charles Kemp, he developed a model that inferred a tree for animal species and arranged Supreme Court justices in a linear order from data on their decisions.

  4. May 2011

    A Troland research award

    The National Academy of Sciences honored him with a Troland Research Award.

  5. By 2019

    Bayesian models of learning

    His group showed that cognitive and neural mechanisms behind categorization, causal inference, concept learning and language learning mirror Bayesian statistical approaches.

  6. By 2019

    Simulating everyday understanding

    He used video game simulation engines and probabilistic programs to model intuitive physics and psychology. His machine-learning and AI research aimed to bring algorithms closer to the capacities of human learning.

  7. September 2019

    A MacArthur Fellowship

    He was named a recipient of the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship for his work on human cognition.

  8. As of October 2026

    Directing MIT's intelligence quest

    He is a professor of computational cognitive science in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a scientific director with the MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence. ELLIS lists him as a Fellow at MIT.

Sources and credits

Photo: cocosci.mit.edu; Josh Tenenbaum – Computational Cognitive Science Lab; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: cocosci.mit.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. Joshua Tenenbaum - MacArthur Foundation macfound.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Josh Tenenbaum receives 2019 MacArthur Fellowship | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology news.mit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. MIT Spectrum - Understanding Intelligence | MIT for a Better World betterworld.mit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. Tenenbaum Named Troland Research Award Winner | MIT CSAIL csail.mit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Joshua Tenenbaum | The MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence sqi.mit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. Joshua B. Tenenbaum | European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems ellis.eu. Checked 14 October 2026.