Steven Minton
Steven Minton is an AI researcher and entrepreneur with a computer science doctorate from Carnegie Mellon. He worked at NASA Ames and USC’s Information Sciences Institute before cofounding Fetch Technologies in 2000. With collaborators, he developed the min-conflicts repair approach for constraint satisfaction and scheduling. He also founded the AI Access Foundation and served as the first executive editor of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. His later work includes InferLink and the Evid Science spinoff.
- Now at
- InferLink
- Works
- 203
- Citations
- 8,248
- h-index
- 43
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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As of October 2026
Research at CMU, NASA and USC
Minton earned a computer science doctorate at Carnegie Mellon. He later worked as a principal investigator at NASA Ames and a research associate professor at USC’s Information Sciences Institute.
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1992
Repair conflicts to solve constraints
Minton, Mark Johnston, Andrew Philips and Philip Laird described min-conflicts. Their method begins with a complete assignment and repairs violated constraints. They studied its performance on n-queens and scheduling, with a theoretical analysis of conditions favoring the approach.
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As of October 2026
Make AI research accessible
Minton founded the AI Access Foundation, the publisher of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, and served as the journal’s first executive editor. He later served in editorial roles, connecting his research with the infrastructure used to share AI work.
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2000–2020
Build AI companies
He left USC to cofound Fetch Technologies in 2000. His later work included InferLink and its Evid Science spinoff, acquired in December 2020.
Sources and credits
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