PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Seth Teller

Also known as S Teller, S. Teller, Seth J Teller, Seth J. Teller

Seth Teller was a computer scientist whose work joined computer vision, robotics, and assistive technology. He earned a physics BA at Wesleyan and computer science degrees at UC Berkeley before joining MIT's EECS faculty in 1994. At MIT, he helped map Cambridge in 3-D, led autonomous-robot projects, and developed wearable machine-vision systems for blind and visually impaired people; he also created an assistive-technology course. He died in 2014 while leading MIT's team in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

Born
1964
Died
2014
Works
274
Citations
13,001
h-index
54
Badges

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1985–1992

    Physics and computer science degrees

    He earns a BA in physics from Wesleyan in 1985, an MS in computer science at UC Berkeley in 1990, and a PhD in computer science there in 1992. His thesis develops precomputation and visibility methods for rendering densely occluded geometric models.

  2. 1990s

    Mapping Cambridge in 3-D

    In the 1990s, his City Scanning Project builds high-resolution 3-D models of parts of Cambridge with robot-mounted digital cameras and algorithms that estimate the cameras' positions and orientations.

  3. 1994–2007

    Professor at MIT EECS

    He joins MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as an assistant professor in 1994, becomes an associate professor in 1998, earns tenure in 2002, and becomes a full professor in 2007.

  4. 1995–1997

    NSF and Sloan awards

    He receives the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Award in 1995 and becomes an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in 1997.

  5. 2004–2010

    Autonomous forklifts at MIT

    His Robotics, Vision, and Sensor Networks group settles into the Stata Center in 2004. In 2010, it demonstrates an autonomous forklift.

  6. 2011–2014

    Assistive technology at MIT

    In 2011, he creates MIT's 6.811 course in assistive technology. By 2014, his group develops wearable machine-vision systems for blind and visually impaired people.

  7. 2013–2014

    DARPA Robotics Challenge

    In December 2013, MIT places in the top eight at the DARPA Robotics Challenge trials and secures a spot in the finals. Teller leads MIT's DARPA Robotics Challenge team, slated to compete in the final round.

  8. 2014

    Death at age 50

    He dies in 2014 at age 50 while serving as an MIT professor and leading the Robotics, Vision, and Sensor Networks group.

Career

  1. 2004–2015MIT CSAIL
  2. 1994–2014Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyAssistant Professor, Associate Professor

Education

  1. 1992University of California, BerkeleyPhD in computer science
  2. 1990University of California, BerkeleyMS in computer science
  3. 1985Wesleyan UniversityBA in physics

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Robust distributed network localization with noisy range measurements2004 · International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems · 999 citationsWith Daniela Rus and John J. Leonard
  2. Anytime Motion Planning using the RRT2011 · IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation · 906 citationsWith Sertac Karaman
  3. Understanding Natural Language Commands for Robotic Navigation and Mobile Manipulation2011 · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence · 652 citations
  4. The cricket compass for context-aware mobile applications2001 · Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing And Networking · 588 citations
  5. Anchor-Free Distributed Localization in Sensor Networks2003 · 456 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Professor Seth Teller dies at age 50 | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology news.mit.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Visibility Computations in Densely Occluded Polyhedral Environments | EECS at UC Berkeley www2.eecs.berkeley.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Professor Seth Teller, roboticist, dies at 50 | The Tech thetech.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Continuing the legacy: Assistive technologies at MIT | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology news.mit.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Seth Teller people.csail.mit.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.