Stan Sclaroff
Stan Sclaroff is a computer scientist whose AI work spans computer vision, shape recognition, image search, and human gesture analysis. He earned degrees at Tufts and MIT, developed modal matching for shape recognition, and developed ImageRover, an early content-based image retrieval system for the Web. At Boston University, he chaired computer science and became Dean of Arts & Sciences in 2019; he became an IAPR Fellow in 2016 for contributions to tracking, gesture analysis, shape recognition, and video databases. In 2025, he wrote as dean and AI researcher about generative AI in education, and he is BU's Dean of Arts & Sciences as of October 2026.
- Now at
- Boston University
- Works
- 407
- Citations
- 19,825
- h-index
- 71
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.
Timeline
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1984–1995
Degrees and modal matching
He earns a Tufts B.S. in computer science and English in 1984, an MIT S.M. in 1991, and a Ph.D. in 1995. At MIT, he develops modal matching, a deformable-shape method for measuring signal similarity.
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1995–2018
Leading computer science at BU
He joins BU's computer science department in 1995, chairs it from 2007 to 2013, and serves as associate dean for Mathematical and Computational Sciences from 2015 to 2018. He develops ImageRover, one of the Internet's first content-based image retrieval systems.
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2008
An ASL video dataset
In 2008, he coauthors the ASL Lexicon Video Dataset paper, which introduces a public video collection of thousands of distinct ASL signs with annotations for frames and sign labels.
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2016
An IAPR fellowship
He becomes an IAPR Fellow in 2016 for contributions to tracking, human gesture analysis, shape recognition, and video databases.
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2019
Dean of Arts & Sciences
In 2019, Boston University appoints him Dean of Arts & Sciences.
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2025–2026
Dean and AI researcher
In 2025, he writes as dean and AI researcher about generative AI and education. As of October 2026, he is the Dean of Arts & Sciences at BU. His research includes machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Sources and credits
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