Leslie Pack Kaelbling
Leslie Pack Kaelbling researches learning, planning and robotics. She wrote a 1990 Stanford dissertation on learning in embedded systems and coauthored 1994 work on partially observable decisions. With Michael Littman and Andrew Moore she published a reinforcement-learning survey in 1996. AAAI elected her a Fellow in 2000. She founded the Journal of Machine Learning Research. With Tomas Lozano-Perez she leads shared research connecting robot task decisions with physical motion planning.
- Works
- 390
- Citations
- 29,130
- h-index
- 64
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1990–1994
Learning and partially observed decisions
Kaelbling wrote Learning in Embedded Systems as her 1990 Stanford dissertation and published it as a book in 1993. She coauthored the 1994 paper Acting Optimally in Partially Observable Stochastic Domains with Anthony Cassandra and Michael Littman. These works connect learning agents with decisions when the full state of the world is unavailable.
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1996
A shared reinforcement-learning survey
Kaelbling, Michael Littman and Andrew Moore published Reinforcement Learning: A Survey in 1996. The survey covers learning through interaction, exploration and exploitation, delayed feedback, models, generalization and hidden state. The paper presents a computer-science view of the field.
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2000 and academic publishing
AI fellowship and a research journal
AAAI elected Kaelbling a Fellow in 2000. She founded the Journal of Machine Learning Research and is MIT’s Panasonic Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. The journal work forms part of a career that includes research, teaching and support for the communication of machine-learning results.
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Research program
Task and motion planning
At MIT, Kaelbling and Tomas Lozano-Perez jointly lead task and motion planning research. The project connects reasoning about sequences of actions with the physical motions needed to carry them out. The project aims to enable robot operation in human environments.
Sources and credits
Photo: MIT CSAIL; Leslie Pack Kaelbling profile photograph; photographer not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: csail.mit.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.