Biography

Deb Roy directs the Cognitive Machines group at the MIT Media Lab. A native of Canada, Roy received his bachelor of computer engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1992 and his PhD in cognitive science from MIT in 1999. He joined the MIT faculty in 2000. Roy studies how children learn language, and designs machines that learn to communicate in human-like ways. To enable this work, he has pioneered new data-driven methods for analyzing and modeling human linguistic and social behavior. He has authored numerous scientific papers on artificial intelligence, cognitive modeling, human-machine interaction, data mining, and information visualization.

Roy was the co-founder and serves as CEO of Bluefin Labs, a venture-backed technology company. Built upon deep machine learning principles developed in his research over the past 15 years, Bluefin has created a technology platform that analyzes social media commentary to measure real-time audience response to TV ads and shows. Roy's research is frequently featured in the media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, WIRED, National Geographic, Science, the BBC, and National Public Radio.